


And the lights will lead you Home

by callmenewbie



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Bisexual Steve Harrington, Brotherly Steve Harrington & Dustin Henderson, Chainsmoking, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Police Officer Steve Harrington, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn, good billy and max relationship, slightly sarcastic narrative, some 80's songs, they don't even meet for chapters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-03-10
Packaged: 2019-10-06 19:24:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 29,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17351156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callmenewbie/pseuds/callmenewbie
Summary: Her face was still too familiar, it felt like an itch in the back of his brain, one that he just couldn’t scratch.“Alright, come with me please and we can quickly go over the details and fill some forms in my office.” It wasn’t his office exactly, but there was no one in and the forms were in the chief’s cabinet, so. They walked over there and Steve was elbow deep in the drawer to fish the papers out from the very back. They weren’t in use for years.“First, what’s the name of the missing person?”She looked him dead in the eye and gave out half an exhale before answering.“Billy Hargrove.”~Billy goes missing and it's Steve's job to find him. During the investigation, he learns more about him, than what he ever meant to and as always things just get more complicated day by day.





	1. The vanishing of Billy Hargrove

Steve Harrington was happy. His life was on track, better than ever. His friends were great, his family was great and his love life was absolute _perfection_.

It was only a few months ago when he started to work at the Hawkins Police Department; he’s got into his experience year, after officer Braun moved away to Indianapolis, now he was a fully entitled newbie. But it was fine, his colleagues didn’t pay much attention to him, as they didn’t know him more than that he was “the son of that Harrington” and with Hopper behind his back no one would dare to pick on him.

It was a good line of work as well, it wasn’t exciting per se, it was Hawkins after all and nothing ever happened, beside some drunk teens who were just _barely_ younger than him and some intruding on private property, which meant kids crossing some gardens of summerhouses on their way to the lake to drink and have sex and be young.  
Some snotty teens at work and then some snotty teens at home. Always the same, but he didn’t really mind it that much.

His friends were great, even if most of them were at least three years younger than him, still in school and just the _biggest nerds_ , but he loved them all the same anyway. And then of course there was Nancy and Jonathan, who seemed to find a great balance in their sort of weird triangle of a relationship. Which technically meant that both of them tend to take up worrying about him as a hobby and they invested a great deal of energy and time in it as well. They acted like he was their yet unborn child, you know it’s not like he was fucking Nancy over a year and fighting with Jonathan over her or anything. But it was fucking fine.

His family was great, well if you didn’t count the fact that they _weren’t there_ , but it was okay too. His parents spent more and more time out of town, having already three other apartments in Chicago, New York and somewhere in Virginia, although he stopped paying attention to them, so there might have been even more. Seven months ago they finally moved to Chicago and left him completely alone in the house.  
First they said it’s only gonna take a few weeks, then months passed by, it was soon half a year and now Steve didn’t think they would ever come back.  
And that was absolutely fine, at least that’s what he told himself. Made him feel more independent and all that shit.

His love life was absolute perfection, as in the sense of absolutely and perfectly non-existent.

Since they broke up with Nancy, he went out with some girls, he didn’t remember the name of, and it wasn’t his idea either, the kids - mostly Dustin - just couldn’t leave him alone, until he went on these horrible, horrible blind dates. But eventually they gave up and now there was no one in sight. The line that used to be so long, the number of the girls who wanted to be with him decreased to zero. And that was _fine_ too.

Steve Harrington was perfectly happy, thank you very much. Because Steve Harrington didn’t have nightmares about flower faced monsters, he didn’t have a major sexual identity crisis and no, he definitely was not on the edge of paranoia. No, he just fucking wasn’t.

 

The truth was, that Steve was just on the borderline of tolerable and too much. Always tipping onto one side or the other. There were better days, when he went to see the others, had a couple of beers with Hopper (now that he could do that legally) or called the kids over to cook for them. Not like he was that good at cooking, but he could whip up something simple any time and they would eat together and talk about school and work and movies they went to see or planning to go.

However on worse days, he locked himself up in his awfully quiet house and if anyone knocked on the door, he pretended to be out, just not there. He was sure they knew, but it was like an unspoken rule, like a sign ‘do not disturb’. They never talked about this, ever. And he was glad that they didn’t push him, that they understood what he went through.

The last few days were among the bad ones. The really bad ones. Actually he didn’t feel this low, since he came back from the tunnels. Like some kind of black ooze was creeping up, from the bottom of his guts, filling up his stomach, his throat until it reached the back of his brain. _Like something was coming._

He had horrible night terrors and of course that made him tired and gave him strong headaches, so much that it was hard to concentrate on anything else and Hopper was kind enough to let him stay on paper duty for a few days. He felt like shit and he looked like it too; big, puffy, dark bags under his eyes, two days old stubble on his face, his hair was slightly flat and his lips were chapped. Over all just like a junkie. Except junkies didn’t have to fight monsters. They didn’t have to put up with enough shit that could’ve got _all of them_ killed. Twice.

So now he was hunched over his desk, writing down some unimportant reports about some unimportant speeding tickets. He was trying to keep his migrainous headache at bay, that even after taking two aspirins wouldn’t falter and sipped into his stone cold, bitter coffee every now and again.  
He was already in his pity party round two; which meant that he was over monsters. For now anyways. No, he just upgraded to _emotional distress_. And it was just the greatest, wasn’t it?

He quietly groaned and kept on going with the growing blackness in his stomach. When he was like this, he became jumpy, looked around every corner, turned around every few minutes, just to make sure that there was nothing following him. And it made him feel insane. Was he really?  
He talked about this with Joyce Byers a few times and she assured him that it was okay, that it was normal. He just wasn’t sure if he could believe her.

When the door opened, he almost had a stroke right there a then. In the quietness of the room, the door slid over the floor ever so slightly, like nails on a chalkboard.

In the doorway there was a woman with bright red hair and a soft, pretty face. He saw her before, or course, he saw everyone in Hawkins before. But he didn’t know her, but he had a feeling that he should recognise her.

She looked around and upon realising that there was no one else in there, she made her way over to Steve’s desk.

“Good morning ma'am, how can I help you?” he tried to sound as polite as possible, through his throbbing pain. He half succeeded; he sounded normal, but he did wince once.

“I’d like to speak with the chief.”

“Well, he’s not in yet, but he’s gonna be in a few hours, if you wanna come back.”

“That’s alright. I think I can talk to you as well,” It sounded more like a question, than a statement.

“Sure,” Steve said curtly and she just nodded, barely visible.

“I’d like to report a missing person,” she said slightly uncertain as she clutched at the handle of her purse and her expression made Steve furrow his brows. She looked like as she wasn’t sure that the person is missing, or even more so like she wasn’t sure she should report it.

Her face was still too familiar, it felt like an itch in the back of his brain, one that he just couldn’t scratch.

“Alright, come with me please and we can quickly go over the details and fill some forms in my office.” It wasn’t _his_ office exactly, but there was no one in and the forms were in the chief’s cabinet, so. They walked over there and Steve was elbow deep in the drawer to fish the papers out from the very back. They weren’t in use for years.

“First, what’s the name of the missing person?”

She looked him dead in the eye and gave out half an exhale before answering.

“Billy Hargrove.”

And then Steve finally realised who she was. She was Max’s mom, Billy’s stepmom.

“What?” He asked, but then he thought it might not be the most polite and appropriate question, he rephrased. “When?”

“Two weeks ago.”

“What?” And this time his voice was sharper and a notch higher. He finally got the papers, after almost shutting the drawer on his arm in surprise. “Is there a reason why no one reported it until now?”

She just sighed and fidgeted under Steve’s gaze, she was obviously very uncomfortable in this situation, but what bothered Steve the most is that she did not look too worried about Billy or too eager to get the search started. More like getting done with an obligatory task, like something you just have to do, like grocery shopping or paying the bills.

Sure Billy Hargrove was an asshole and she wasn’t his real mom, but they lived together for years now… shouldn’t that change something?

He sat down behind Hopper’s desk and gestured to the other chair offeringly, but she just kept her place, standing in the middle of the office, ready to go.

 

“It’s not the first time he left, but it never took this long for him to come back,” she said slowly and carefully, like there was something that just _shouldn’t_ be said. Then added, so quiet that Steve almost missed it: “maybe he’s finally gone.”

He wasn’t sure what to say to that. He didn’t know how Billy behaved at home, Max never really talked about him, but he had to be a real terror if even his own family didn’t want him around. He always imagined that he took after his dad, so he would be real proud of him. But he wasn’t the one here, on the station reporting Billy’s being gone.

It started to get really complicated and Steve wasn’t in the mood to untangle a whole family drama, so he just got on with the questions.

“What was the longest he was gone before?”

“A week I think, maybe less.” Steve pursed his lips and scribbled down a note.

“What happened when you last saw him?” Standard questions, he thought, stick to them and wrap it up.

“On Saturday morning, they’ve had an argument,” Steve raised an eyebrow, so she clarified “Billy and Neil, they- they’ve got a very tense relationship. Anyway, he, Billy left the house, took his car and haven’t seen him since.”

“No calls, or anyone who could saw him?”

“He doesn’t have friends” was her answer, as if she deemed the conversation finished. But Steve had nearly no information what so ever to finish the form, let alone to actually look for Billy.

“Do you know where he normally goes when you know,” he made a vague gesture with his hand. “When he usually disappears?”

“No, we don’t talk about it, we just… pretend that it never happened,” she merely whispered that last part and averted her gaze. Steve felt like he stepped into black sludge, he almost could hear the smooching sound when you try to lift your foot, but you just _can’t_.

“I see.” He was careful with his next question, because he had a feeling it just might be the last, before Mrs Hargrove flees. “And if you think, he left on his own will, why are you reporting him? I mean if he just decided to leave… if that wasn’t the first time, maybe he just had enough,” he tried to put it in a nice way, but really that wasn’t an option. Obviously there was something strange going on in their home and that might have been the matter of an entirely other investigation.

“I’m not sure. If he comes back, I’ll let you know and you can just ignore this report. But if something happened to him, I don’t want to be at blame, because no one was looking for him.”

And there it was. Guilt.

She didn’t care about him more than getting the blame for him and for some reason it pissed Steve off. He didn’t care about Billy either, he was a horrible asshole, who once broke a fucking plate on his head, just after trying to beat up a thirteen-year-old. But. He wasn’t his stepmom either, he wasn’t responsible for Billy what so ever. But his parents… Not to mention that it wasn’t even his dad who came to the police. This was utterly fucked up.

“Well, I think we’re done here. Thank you for your time.” She said and she tugged a little bit on her scarf. Steve just nodded, as he knew that if they start an investigation, the police had to pay a visit to their house for more information anyways.

She was standing there awkwardly for a few seconds, shifting her weight from one leg to the other, like waiting for permission to leave.

“Alright. Thank you uh, for coming in, I’ll talk to the chief and we’re gonna get to it as soon as possible.”

She still wasn’t looking him in the eye.

“I’ll call you when we found him.”

“If you find him,” she said quietly. He just sighed.

“You have a nice day, Mrs Hargrove.”

She nodded once more and left, with light little knocks of her heels echoing in Steve’s ears like fireworks on the fourth of July.

Well today was a bit more exiting, than yesterday. But Steve was left with overwhelming confusion and just way too many thoughts in his head to sort out.

Hopper came in just after ten, by that time Steve finished filling out the form. Well, finishing it was pretty much a stretch, since he had no date of birth or name of birth mother for example, but he was sure that he can get that later. Not like anyone’s gonna check it. He wouldn’t be surprised if they’d have data on him already, as he remembered seeing him with the police back in the school days, although he wasn’t sure if he’d been brought in or not after all.

Nonetheless he told about it to Hopper, who made humming sounds around his cigarette while he went into details about that little scene with Mrs Hargrove. For some reason he didn’t seemed surprised, nor did he seemed to be concerned about the lack of interest from her part for that matter.

“I’m gonna be honest kid, it’s not the first time I had her here for this,“ he said, blowing out some smoke, then grabbed a bite from his ham sandwich. “But it was about two years ago when I last saw her here. I tell you what; you’re gonna get to the bottom of this. You’ve been here for months, you can handle it.”

“I- well, yeah, sure, but… “ he was babbling. This case was interesting, sure, but he had no experience and missing people were no joke. If that was the case at all. He had no facts, no information and no resources.

“It’s gonna be okay, believe me. And anyway he’s probably gonna turn up in a few days, like always. And if not-” he shrugged and wiped a bit of mayo off of his moustache. “I’ve got your back, if you need anything.”

”F-fine” was all he could push through his tightened up throat.

“First finish up those,” he pointed towards the forms in his hand. “You can find the other ones in the cabinet at the H.”

“Thanks.”

“And kid? _Come to me_ , if you need anything.”

Steve nodded one more time and then walked out of his office.

He felt uneasy, it might be nothing or it might be his biggest case yet. Billy was always one to find trouble, may be it fights or apparently his family. Diving into that could be problematic and Steve knew that, but couldn’t help the tiny little feeling that made the tip of his fingers itch. But like so many things today, he couldn’t quite explain it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story was meddling with my mind for about a month now, so I just had to write it and it's already gonna be longer, than I planned, but oh well.  
> Actually the first two chapters meant to be only one, but it got way too long and I had to cut it in half, so this one is more like a Prologue.  
> Also about the title... how could I resist?


	2. Marco

He spent the afternoon filling out the files and calling nearby stations all the way up to Portland looking for Billy’s car, eventually giving out a warrant for it. Susan said he took it when he left, so it was a safe bet to assume that if he finds his car, he’s gonna be there too.  
But of course it wasn’t that simple, the chief at Somerset said they had an unusual amount of reports about cars speeding or parking on the wrong place in the last month and it was pretty much the same with the other towns as well. It was December and people were roaming the streets all over state for gifts, food and visiting their family. It was a hard time to find a car, like a needle in a haystack. A giant, buzzing haystack.

Steve sighed. The next step was to look for clues here, in Hawkins. He had to find people who saw him the day he left. The obvious start would be his family, but he knew that Max was in Michigan, visiting her mom’s sister and she supposed to be gone for about a week, and well for the rest of the family… he wanted to leave that for last, for the time when they had to check out the house and he just hoped that maybe someone else would take that pleasure from him.

He left the station with a cigarette in his hand, which for he was rewarded with a furrowed brow by Florence. She always said he was too young for this and that it was obviously Hopper’s bad influence on him.  
Of course, he was smoking since he was fourteen, but somehow he never mentioned this to her. It was more fun looking at Hopper being grilled by her gaze.

Hawkins wasn’t that big, so in two and a half hours he covered all the shops and gas stations in the area and he found out, that they indeed saw him at the station leading out of town towards Mount Etna. He didn’t buy anything but gas and then left. The cashier described him as in an awfully bad shape, with cracked up lips and blood on his knuckles.

He thanked the elderly lady politely, bought some candy from her in exchange for her time and then left in a hopeful mood. Even his headache seemed to pull back a little bit.

He had a clue already on his first day of the investigation and that was more than he expected. Now it was past six and he supposed to finish work at five.

 

He headed back to the station, just quickly note his findings in the report file, then checked out for the day and got into his car.

After shutting the door with a loud thud, his just sat there, one hand resting on the steering wheel, the other one holding a cigarette.

He was thinking about the case, but there was just something he couldn’t wrap his head around. Based on what the cashier said, Billy looked like hell. But who did he picked a fight with? And why? And was it really that? Or there was an other option, that made Steve’s face darken up, like clouds before the storm. What if he left the house looking like that? Since he turned up there still pretty early in the morning, it seemed quite possible.

_They’ve got a very tense relationship._

He hoped, that he’s gonna get news about the car from the nearby towns soon enough. Until then he had a lot else to look after.

And not just the case. He promised Dustin, that he’s gonna pick him up after work and he was late already.

The kid took a part time job in the VHS rental place, which made Steve very proud, not that he would ever say it out loud. Maybe just once.

Weekly twice he worked there and smiled at customers and served them with a suspicious enthusiasm, just to later complain about it to Steve and he acted like he was annoyed, but really he didn’t mind it all that much. Dustin was pretty much his best friend, or like a little brother. He helped him stay grounded and sane and although he was a huge idiot sometimes, Steve was very thankful for him.  
He kind of felt sorry for Meows, but at the end of the day he was happy Dustin found him that day, because that was the best thing that ever happened to him, even if that night turned out to be the worst one of his life.

He threw the cigarette butt out the window and drove into town, towards the small rental place. Dustin was already outside, waiting for him.

“Son of a bitch, it’s been twenty minutes!” he shouted before Steve could even stop the engine and emphasised with big, angry gestures of his arms.

“Sorry man, work stretched out,” he rubbed his neck apologetically, but he just got a resentful scoff for and answer.

“ _What_ work? It’s Friday and it’s Hawkins. Nothing ever happens here!” he exclaimed and Steve heard the unsaid word: anymore.

Dustin climbed into the passenger seat, still shivering from the outside chill.

“Look, it’s complicated.”

“Can you talk about it?” his eyes sparkled up with interest and all the anger seemed to vanish from his face. He hadn’t seen him like this since they had a case of a bike found on the top of a tree so high it was impossible by human. It was a few months back and the interest only lasted until it turned out that El had managed to throw it up in the middle of an apparent _family banter_ with Hopper. It was a messy business.

“Uh, yeah, I guess, sure,” he mumbled as he steered out from the parking lot.

After a minute silence Dustin gave out an outrageously loud groan and smashed his back into his seat.

“But like _now_? ‘Cause I’m all ears, you know,” he said cupping a hand around some curly hair which almost fully hid his ear.

“Not now, I’ll tell you about it at home,” he rolled up to the main road and tried not to make faces as Dustin turned on the radio looking for something bearable to listen.

“Man this is useless,” Dustin mumbled as he quickly skipped through the channels, mostly finding static. Steve just rolled his eyes.

“Then leave it alone, we’re literally two minutes away anyways.”

“Fine. But you really gonna have to buy a new tape.” He crossed his arms over his chest and did something that only could been described as pouting.

“Or- I don’t know, maybe you could give back the one you ‘borrowed’,” he said making air quotes with his hands, as he let go off the wheel Dustin’s face visibly changed. It wasn’t his fault to be fair, but Mike’s.

When the kids turned sixteen, soon enough all of them started to learn how to drive and it was mostly fine, but there was one time when as practise Mike took the guys to a short trip just around the woods, but the kids being themselves started an argument in the car and Mike was trying to make them shut up, which almost sent all of them to the hospital, as they drifted off of the road and nearly smashed into a tree.  
Since then even though Dustin trusted Steve, he had a lingering fear of car incidents. He couldn’t blame him, but he wasn’t in the car so it was also a bit funny seeing him like this.

Now most of them, including Dustin had a licence, but he was still saving up for a car and until then Steve continued to give him rides when he needed, because, well. What else would he do? It’s not that Mike or Lucas couldn’t drive him, but since he worked at the station the time they spent together dramatically decreased, so it was nice to have a chat in the car, sometimes he even took the longer way home and mostly when it wasn’t school night Dustin stayed over, occasionally alone, but usually with the rest of the party.

Since they were older, he didn’t have to ‘babysit’ them anymore, but he stuck with them anyway. They were good kids. Annoying and quite nerdy, but good kids nonetheless.

 

“Man, where the hell have you been?” Speaking of annoying.

Just like Dustin before, Mike didn’t wait until he stopped the engine. The kids were already on his driveway, obstructing his way to park normally. “We’re starving to death!”

“I’m sure that’s not true,“ he sighed as he got out of the car.

“Get off his back, Mike, he’s got a case!” Dustin sounded very excited and also a little bit proud? Steve wasn’t sure if the excitement would stay after he told them what was the case about.

“Really? What case?” Lucas asked while Steve fumbled with his keys to let them in, but his fingers were quite cold and a bit numb. “Did someone die? Or the bank’s been robbed?”

“Get inside and I tell you everything, jesus.”

“And what about the food?” Dustin pushed inside just before him.

“I order you some pizza,” he rolled his eyes and let Will in as well, so he could lock the door behind them. He turned the key twice and tugged the knob back and forth a little, it was a nervous habit he just couldn’t shed.

 

 

They were sitting on the floor in the living room and Steve watched as the kids dripped melted cheese on the table and dropped crumbs on the floor. They were _impossible_.

“So what is this case about?“ asked Mike chewing on a big floppy slice.

“Yeah, right, so” he didn’t know where to start. In the last twenty minutes he could avoid talking about it by asking the kids about their day and they’ve got into a big - and loud - conversation about a very unfair teacher who gave grades based on whose parents he liked and whose he didn’t. That actually made Steve thinking about paying a visit to the school sometime soon.

But now he had to talk about the investigation and he didn’t know how to say it, so he just went with the plain facts.

“Billy went missing.”

“Billy who?” asked Will and that was probably the third time he spoke since they arrived. He was awfully quiet today and Steve didn’t have to ask why, it was for the same reason he had a throbbing headache for days now. He had nightmares again. So did Steve and the thought worried him just enough to peek over at Will in every few minutes, expecting- what exactly? He didn’t know, but he felt a dark mixture of worry and nervousness settling down in his stomach.

“Hargrove,” he shrugged and took a big bite trying not to smear it all around his face, more or less successfully.

“What?” All of them piped up at the same time.

“What do you mean he went missing?” asked Dustin confused.

“His mom, I mean Max’s mom came in the morning and reported him missing.”

“Wow” Whistled Lucas and he had a not too subtle smile tugged in the corner of his mouth. Steve couldn’t blame him the slightest.

“So whatcha’ gonna do?” Dustin pointed a _very_ greasy finger at him.

“Wipe your fingers, dickhead,” he threw a kitchen towel at him and then thought about the answer. “Well I already phoned around the nearby towns looking for his car. But I have nothing yet.”

“Mm, I don’t know… maybe it’s better for everyone.” Steve frowned at Mike who just sat there with an uncaring expression on his face and like really it was the most natural thing to do when someone disappears; don’t give a shit.

And he’d got it, really, the kids hated the guy, he was a real ass to Max and then tried to hit Lucas and did beat the shit out of Steve. But. He was a supposedly missing person now and no one cared about him.

If that was how it felt for Billy all the time, even when he was home, he wouldn’t blame him to just take off. Just go and vanish in the void and never look back.

Unfortunately his job was to find him.

The kids stayed the night and they were watching some crappy horror movie, while he’d gathered up the empty pizza boxes and made up the beds in the guestroom for Will and Mike and his parents old room for Dustin and Lucas. It was already very late and although they didn’t have school tomorrow, Steve did have to go to work. And he already knew that he’s gonna be like a zombie.

 

 

The morning wasn’t looking any more successful than the day before. He’d got some calls back from other stations and they had nothing useful to say. They haven’t found the car nor did they have any reports about it or Billy himself. It seemed to be a dead end.

He was quite sure that Billy just left, drove away and fled Indiana all together, maybe he was already in the other half of America and enjoying his freedom, away from his family and away from Hawkins.

 

At nine the other officers went to patrol, planning to ask about Billy around town. There was no one else in the station, but Hopper, Steve and Florence just outside of hearing range, but close enough if they needed anything, mostly coffee or a scolding.

 

Steve just got off the phone with officer McLaughlin from Mount Etna, which he had the biggest hopes for, but he had disappointing news, since apparently Billy’s car never crossed their borders. And that left Steve clueless once again, waiting for the others to come back and report just the same.

He buried his face in his hands and rubbed on his eyes. This was his first _real_ case and it was hopeless. It seemed that Billy Hargrove was able to taunt him without even being present.

Steve practically jumped up when Hopper suddenly appeared at his desk, slamming a slack of papers on it.

“I pulled some strings, so here’s the Hargrove kid’s file from California, they just faxed it over.”

“Thanks chief, I appreciate it,” he said with a weary expression on his face as he opened the top folder, but that just made him furrow his brows. It wasn’t what he expected at all, he thought all the files going to be minor crime records, but this one was a hospital release form. He looked up at the other man.

“Chief? What’s this?”

“Yeah, I expected something else as well. But this actually explains a lot,” he scratched his beard and his face had disapproval written all over it. “Well, maybe you can use it for something. Have you found out anything yet?”

He sat down on the edge of Steve’s desk and crossed his arms over his chest.

“They saw him at the gas station. Apparently he looked like shit and he drove towards Etna, but they haven’t got any reports on him there. Honestly, I don’t know. I mean it can be that he hadn’t brought attention to himself, but I doubt it. I mean he was all beat up, bloody and we all know how he drives,” he frowned a bit.

“Yeah, I don’t think they could’ve miss it. But it’s been only a day, give yourself some time.”

“Yeah, but what if I don’t have time? If it’s already too late?”

“Then it’s not your fault. Being responsible is good, but you just _can not_ shoulder all the load. Now that we’re at the topic, you look like crap. What’s going on, kid?” He couldn’t help it, even when he just wanted to dismiss it and say he’s fine, he couldn’t. There was just something about the act of lying to Hopper, who was the chief of police, his boss and close friend at the same time that made it nearly impossible.

“Nothing really,” he sighed and rubbed his hand over his face once again. “It’s just… the kids stayed over last night, you know how they can get” and yes he _did_ know, “and I think Will has nightmares again…”

“I’ll tell Joyce to keep an eye on him,” he said darkly. “And what about you? You don’t look so hot either.”

“’m fine, it’s just that we were up late and-“ he stopped in midsentence, when he saw Hopper’s rising brows as if saying ‘cut the bullshit’. “Yeah, alright, I have nightmares too, but which one of us hasn’t?” he shrugged and the chief just hummed in agreement.

The monsters were gone for years now, but the impact they’ve made haven’t really faded just yet. Steve wasn’t sure that it ever will.

“Right. Well let me know if anything comes up.” He got up from his desk and walked back to his office, getting a very unasked for apple from Florence on his way and Steve tried to look away, but she’s already got him under her gaze and started towards him with a nice, round orange.

 

The day passed almost uneventful, although he had to go out to check a broken window in the post office, which looked like vandalism committed by some middle schoolers and look for Mrs Milestone’s missing cat, who apparently visited her neighbour and slept on his porch. He still wasn’t sure if the police really did answer these kind of calls generally, or it was just out of boredom, or more possibly they just made _him_ take them.

Other than that he was going through Billy’s files and he smoked about half a box of cigarettes over them. They were disturbing in a way he never came across before. They weren’t that special per se, but just consistent and painful to look at.

There were hospital files from the age of nine and criminal records from the age of eleven, up ‘til the time they’ve moved to Hawkins. First they were minor injuries, bruises, sprains, a few stitches some times and the records stated that he’d been brought in by his mom. They were about two-three incidents a year, but after he turned twelve, there were less of those and more of the criminal records instead. Vandalism, fights, nothing he hasn’t seen from Billy before.

Looking at them, Steve noticed a few things; first that the injuries became increasingly worse by time, second that the hospital visits were always shortly followed by criminal records. The reports abruptly stopped at the age of fourteen, then there was one last criminal record at sixteen (some fight in a house party) and then nothing. No hospitalisation, no more police visits, _nothing_.

But that last one was strange, because usually his mom bailed him out, but that time he was left in the cell for overnight.

After a few phone calls and repeating his badge number until boredom, he found out that Billy’s mom had died in a car accident, on her way to the police station.

He collected more information than he hoped for, but all in all they didn’t really help his case. But Mrs Hargrove’s behaviour seemed more understandable now. Billy’s dad wasn’t a nice man. Actually he was a dirt bag and although Steve wasn’t a big fan of Billy Hargrove, he was absolutely disgusted by Neil Hargrove.

It felt weird, looking through these files, pictures and reports. Things that Billy would _never_ willingly share with him, hell, probably he would rather die than letting Steve investigate his case, well not like he had any saying in that. As Steve got closer to his personal life step by step, he had to realise just how protected it was. He never would’ve guessed half of it.

The end of the day Powel and Thomas came back with not much, but the fact that he left home too early in the morning, that most of the people who could see him were still home or even asleep. But there was still tomorrow’s patrol. Not like that could change anything, in his opinion.

Steve sighed. This seemed to be going nowhere. He had information that didn’t really help with the location of Billy, but providing a reason for him to leave and made Steve feel like an intruder, some kind of creep.

He decided that if he wants to get closer to the solution, he couldn’t postpone a visit to the Hargrove house much longer. And that somehow didn’t brighten his mood the slightest.

He felt lost and _so_ tired, this whole situation seemed absolutely hopeless.

It was like shouting Marco into a howling abyss and waiting for an answer that never came.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally I didn't want to get the kids involved as much as they're going to be... but this story got out of my hands on more than one occasion, so that's just that.  
> Also I don't have a beta, so although I check everything over a thousand times, there's probably still some mistakes left, just let me know if you spot any, I won't bite.


	3. And it’s usually quite loud

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At work Steve talks to people and finds out some new things about Billy, while at home he has to deal with some problematic teenagers.

Steve was standing in his back yard, by the pool. In one hand he was holding a soon to be cold mug of coffee and a cigarette in the other. He was gazing out into the woods, half-covering his eyesight with smoke. Ever since the monsters came he found it chilling how close those trees were to his house and how alone he was in there most of the time. But he pushed aside that fear usually for the benefit of others and really, just for not going insane.

He was good at that, behaving like everything is okay, like he’s happy, like he’s brave, like he doesn’t know heartache, like he’s not afraid of monsters. Like everything is just fucking fine. Yeah Nancy was fucking right, like she told him years ago, he was _bullshit_.

He flicked the cigarette butt into the pool, right beside the pile of others. Since his parents moved out, it was laying empty. He just couldn’t swim in there and be reminded that on a cold November night someone fell in there and never came back.

So every time Dustin nagged him over the summer to clean and fill it up, he just changed the subject, until he seemed to catch on and left the topic alone all together.

Steve walked inside and put his mug down on the kitchen counter, grabbed his keys and got into his car. He lit two more cigarettes on his way to work. He was on edge, probably because he had to go to the Hargrove house today and just thinking about Mrs Hargrove’s visit from the other day gave him an awkward vibe.

He was bracing himself for the upcoming conversation and tried to make a list in his mind about the questions he had to ask. He never done anything like this before and if that wouldn’t be enough, the family seemed to be a problematic one too.

He had about thirty minutes to chew on a banana and scribble down some notes in the investigation file. And that was about all the preparation time he’d got before the front door opened with such a violent force, the knob crashed into the wall with a loud thud.

First flaming red hair, then a _very_ upset expression caught Steve’s eyes. It was Max. She was sixteen and absolutely _horrifying_.

“Steve, what the fuck?!” She marched over to his desk, like he just entered Steve’s room and not the HOD office. Isn’t she supposed to be gone for a week? Although now that he was thinking about it, that time might have just passed without him noticing.

“Billy’s gone and you didn’t tell me?” She smashed her fist on the desktop, making a pencil holder and two older mugs rattle on it.

“I thought you knew!” He stood up and raised his voice as well, Max was already almost as tall as him and more confident than ever. She kind of started to take after Billy in certain ways as well, she had a temper, that couldn’t always be anticipated and although she was still much sweeter than Billy ever could be, sometimes she was like a raging windmill. Powerful and uncontrollable.

But Steve had more things to worry about than Max’s personality flaws, as he was sure that approximately one more loud sentence and Hopper’s going to give both of them the boots. He was already peeking through his open door.

“Dustin just told me! How would I supposed to know?”

“Your mom is the one who reported,” Steve said slowly, losing all the heat from his voice, giving its way for confusion.

“She didn’t tell me. Apparently no one fucking tells me anything!” she snapped and threw her arms in the air.

“Why do you care so much? As far as I know you hate him anyways!”

“Yeah? Well you don’t know shit!” she spat and with that she turned on her heels and left with a loud bang of the door echoing in the small building.

Hopper raised a curious eyebrow, but Steve just sighed and dropped down into his chair, trying to sink under his desk and promptly shutting out how Thomas and Powel started _giggling_ behind his back. This morning started crappier than expected and that was saying something.

He groaned into his hands and definitely ignored the throbbing pain behind his forehead. Yeah, definitely.

After the disastrous beginning of the day the follow-up was even worse if that was possible.

Around ten o’clock Steve drove out to the Hargrove house and found both Mr and Mrs Hargrove at home. It was already school break, so it was possible they took some days off as well to get down with the Christmas preparations, but most probably to watch over Max, who didn’t need a babysitter anymore, but did like to stay out at nights and come home late.

Max never told them the reason why, maybe Lucas knew, maybe not even him. She showed up late in Steve’s doorway on more and more occasions and he didn’t ask. Not that he didn’t want to, but he couldn’t risk scaring her away and make her wander around Hawkins in the middle of the night.

 

He politely asked them questions about the day Billy went missing, but somehow every answer only raised more questions.

“So if I understand right, you’ve been arguing?”

“I wouldn’t say that. He was disrespectful and I do not tolerate that kind of behaviour in my house.” Billy’s dad gave Steve the shivers. He was a passive aggressive man with big, dry hands and a shockingly normal appearance. Actually the more he dived into the case the more he realised how fucked up the Hargrove family was. So walking into their ridiculously cozy and _normal_ house felt like stepping off a cliff with only one foot. Off-balanced and insecure.

But he knew he couldn’t show weakness, so he made the coldest face and used the hardest voice he could muster.

“I see. Was Maxine home at the time?”

“What do you care if she was? She’s none of your business,” he grumbled dangerously, but Steve stood his ground.

“I need to know. For the investigation,” he smiled politely, ice cold.

Neil gritted his teeth and it seemed that he was considering throwing Steve out of his home. But to be fair, that was pretty much the expression he was making since Billy’s name first came out of Steve’s mouth.

 “She was here, yes. But she can’t tell you anything that we haven’t already.”

“We’ll see about that,” his smile was apparently glued to his face now, but it was way better than letting on how creeped out he felt just from the presence of this guy. Susan stood behind him all along, but said nothing since she offered him some tea with a very fake delight on her face. He declined.

“Could I see Billy’s room?”

“Why?” Neil was getting pissed off and impatient, so as a last resort to remind him that he was talking to a police officer, he put his right hand over the gun on his hips. His gaze followed the gesture sharply.

“ _For the investigation_.“

They showed him to the room and it was pretty much what he expected. Magazines thrown half-heartedly under the bed, tons of cologne, earrings, some tapes, tiny notes and other small, seemingly useless stuff littered over a table, front of a mirror. The bed undone, usual posters on the walls and the wardrobe’s door. On them bikini girls and rock bands. Typical macho stuff.

He looked around in the drawers, patted over the top of the wardrobe for… well anything that could lead him to Billy and finally close this case. Or at least just get him out of this god damn house.

“Is this really necessary?” Mr Hargrove spoke low and slowly, reminding Steve of a dangerous predator.

“Yes, I’m afraid so.” What the fuck was wrong with them? He understood that they probably didn’t have the best relationship, but if your son goes missing you should at least _care_.

Billy’s dad was an asshole and Steve thought he can see why would anyone want to bail from here. And he kind of started to feel for Max as well. This place was fucked up. These people were fucked up.

He sniffed around a bit more, asked some more questions which he got some more reluctant answers, then he took his leave, taking Mr Hargrove heart-warming goodbye with him.

“I hope you’ve got everything you wanted, because  _sadly_ we can’t help you anymore.”

“I’ll let you know if I find out anything,” he pressed it through gritted teeth and a wicked smile. He never had to question relatives for an investigation, but he only could hope that it’s not like this every time.

“That won’t be necessary,” he leaned so close to Steve’s face that he could feel his breath as he whispered “if you find that little faggot, tell him that I don’t wanna see him in this house. Ever. Again.”

 

Steve just stood there, frozen for a moment, shocked, then anger got the better of him and scared that he might do something not-so-officer-like, just turned around and got into his car.

Slamming the door shut loudly to make his point. He drove away, breaking the speed limit not for the first time this week and taking such a big drag from his cigarette that half a stick worth of ash fell onto his dashboard.

When he got back to the station he was still just as pissed, if not more so. Steve slammed the doors on his way, he rattled around his desk with loud thuds and clunks. Probably only his breathing was louder than that, he was practically huffing, like a bewildered animal.

“What the hell, kid?” Hopper walked out of his office, holding some papers in his hands and looking quite annoyed. There was someone in there with him.

Steve was making a complete idiot out of himself, he had to calm down. There were other people, there were other officers around.

Deep breath in, hold it, long exhale.

It felt like he just opened his eyes for the first time since he left the Hargrove house, suddenly he was very aware of his surroundings and the curios looks around him. Fuck.

He was the youngest in there and he just had a tantrum right in the middle of the station. If that didn’t boost his reputation, he didn’t know what could.

Way to go, Harrington. Smooth.

“I’m gonna get back to this,” Hopper said slowly and pointed towards his door with his thumb, “but when I’m done with it, I’ll deal with you.”

It didn’t sound like a threat, but still very much like a conversation he would like to avoid. But on the other hand there was one he’d like to have ASAP.

Now that his head cleared out a little bit, he finally could think again. He dialled Dustin from the main phone on the wall, counting the rings before he picked up.

“Hey man, uh, is Max around?” and there he went, the adult, officer Harrington. Trying to get to a girl by calling her friends. Well it was nothing like that. He felt just as stupid though.

“No, but I can call her on the walkie. Is everything alright? Is it urgent?”

“No, well, it’s for the case. But you can just call her over for tonight and tell her that she can’t say no.”

“Fine.” Dustin’s voice was slightly confused over the line. “You are really grumpy when you have a case, you know that?” Steve pinched the bridge of his nose.

“See you tonight, pal,” he grumbled into the handset.

“Yeah, sure thing, but don’t be la-“ he hung up and smirked for himself, as he was sure that it pissed the kid off just enough to brighten his own mood.

When Steve sat back down and went through that very lean information he got out of the Hargroves with a cooler head now, hopelessness took the place of anger. He was going nowhere and if Billy really left - which was more than possible at this point -, there was quite a small chance to actually find him. And maybe that was for the best. For Billy anyways.

Around noon Thomas stopped by and told him about his visit at the bar Billy used to work until the day he went missing. They didn’t see him either, but apparently he had a bit of a falling out with one of his colleagues on the day before, so everyone just assumed that he quit without a word. He was a good employee, but with a horrible temper, never missed a day, but walked out on the middle of it if that pleased him.

But on the bright side, they gave a tip to him about Billy’s supposed girlfriend, Tammy Parsons. She worked at the cinema, selling popcorn and smiling dishonestly.

Steve decided to look her up, because that seemed the hottest trace right know. Maybe she knew something, hell maybe Billy told at least her when he fucked off.

“Sweet or salty?” She welcomed him with a bored voice, then she looked at him, checked him over from the bottom to the top and her face lit up straight away. “You look like a sweet kind of guy to me.”

“Well, uh, I’m not here for the popcorn I’m afraid. I have a few questions.”

“Fire away, _officer_ -?” Steve’s cheeks felt hot and he only hoped that he’s not turning red already. That was a long time ago, when someone actually flirted with him, even longer when _he_ tried to flirt with anyone.

“Harrington.”

“Officer Harrington. How can I assist you?”

“It’s about Billy, Billy Hargrove.”

“Oh.” She seemed surprised, but she was the first person who didn’t shut off immediately by hearing his name, so that was progress. Well, good enough for Steve anyways. “What about him? Is he in trouble again? ‘Cause I haven’t seen him for a while.”

“No, well, I’m not sure. I’m trying to find him, do you have any idea where he might have gone?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t talk to him for like two months now, you know we haven’t been that close.”

“But you did go out with him, right? Did he say anything or did he behave weird or anything when you last saw him?”

She just shook her head again. “No, but I have to tell you, he is a strange one.”

“Yeah, how so?”

“You know,” she leaned closer and Steve could smell strawberries and hairspray. “He’s a hot piece of art and he’s got a big mouth, but he can’t really live up to it.”

“What do you mean?” Steve frowned.

“You see, we fooled around, but we stopped seeing each other,” she said with a thoughtful look on her face.

“Why’s that?”

“You know,” she made a vague gesture with her hands, Steve signalled with his face that no, he didn’t know. “He’s got a soft dick.”

“What?” he practically shouted in the girl’s face, but she didn’t even flinch. She was something else, truly.

“Well, you see, he was elbow deep in my panties, but he wasn’t even hard. But I have to tell you, he’s got very talented fingers and his m-“

“Alright!” He straightened up and leaned a little back from her. “I think I heard enough. Thank you for your time.”

“Anytime, officer,” she winked and Steve practically fled the scene in embarrassment.

He left flustered and although it might not help his case, but thinking about Billy being impotent was just _weird_. Steve always thought he was a player and it was hard to imagine that he couldn’t perform in bed. And wasn’t he just too young for that? Not like it was any of his business, really. But it did make him smile a little bit as he drove back to the station.

He checked out at three o’clock as an attempt to avoid the awkward conversation with Hopper about his tantrum earlier. He had a good reason, at least it seemed like it at the time. Not so much now, though.

The truth was he could postpone it, but if the chief wanted to talk about something, then he’s gonna find him either ways. Since El became his daughter officially, he started to act like he adopted everyone else as well, like a group bundle. Well he was sort of right, but Steve was just not used to feel like this. Like a kid with a protective parent. It was something strange for him, not like he never had it, just that he didn’t remember if ever.

And thinking about parenting started to anger him up as he thought about Billy and Max and the Hargroves. He didn’t like that Max was in that toxic family, especially that she never mentioned it to him. He thought that the kids trusted him, they fought monsters together and all that. But maybe he didn’t know shit, as she pointed out. Maybe the boys kept secrets from him as well, and that was a crazy road to wander down. He was full of worries.

He still had quite a lot of time until he had to pick up Dustin at the VHS place, so he tried to work on the case some more. He littered every inch of his kitchen counter with casefiles. There was a bunch with hospital reports in it, one for the criminal records from California and that teeny-tiny folder that contained every information that he could obtain for the investigation, mostly papers and clip notes with his own handwriting on them.

He hunched over them and read them through. And again. And again.

He rubbed his eyes, he made coffee, he filled his ashtray with cigarette butts, he felt restless. Constantly in need of something to do with his hands, he scribbled down more notes, but they weren’t any good, like “mom?” and “find the car” and “14” and things like that. Nothing new, nothing really helpful. But he had to do something. _Anything_.

After a few hours he ended up sitting in his highchair, one leg under himself, one just hanging down, swinging a little. He was chewing on his thumb as his gaze lingered on the photo attached to the file. It was Billy’s school photo from graduation year. He looked pretty much the same when Steve last saw him, actually he looked pretty much the same when Steve first saw him. Long, curly hair, denim jacket and a scandalously charming grin. He looked good, confident. The only detail missing from the picture was the bottomless anger.

 

He was always angry and never satisfied, but he looked like someone who takes what he wants, therefore has everything he wants. But Steve knew it better by now.

Billy Hargrove looked like denial.

Steve put the picture in the chest pocket of his jacket just in case he had to show it to someone who was lucky enough not to know him.

Looking at his grin made Steve angry too, although he wasn’t entirely sure who he was mad at, the list seemed to be never-ending. Billy’s dad for being a dick, his stepmom for not caring, Max for not telling, Tammy for spilling his secrets or Billy, because he went missing, _he left_ and now he was supposed to find him and had no clue just how to do that.

Nonetheless out of pure spite he wrote “impotent” on the margin of one of the papers. He looked at the word, the letters curling together in his scribbling handwriting. He chewed on his bottom lip for a couple of seconds, then put a question mark on the end.

 

A few minutes before eight he gave up, put everything in a pile that no one could call tidy by the slightest and went to pick up Dustin.

On the way back they talked about some new movie that they just _had to_ see, but it wasn’t on screen until sometime next month, so Steve only half-heartedly payed attention, then Dustin told him about how Mr Nelson rented porn and how disgusting it was, although he was meaning mostly that he rented it and then brought it back after _using it_ , instead of buying one.

Steve vividly remembered being sixteen and porn was disgusting - rented or otherwise -, but no one would ever say that. And it did the trick just the same, no matter how it actually looked like. All the magazines Steve had stashed in the back of his wardrobe, with the slim, shaved bodies opening up and calling out for him. When you’re a teenager you’re always horny. God, Steve would’ve fucked a potato if it’d worn a bikini.

Although that haven’t changed much, but his priorities did, between the kids, fighting monsters and his job there wasn’t much time left for one night stands, let alone relationships. So as crap as it may be, porn it is.

He didn’t tell this to Dustin of course, they’ve talked about stuff like this, but only vaguely. Dustin had two girlfriends in the last few years, but none of them lasted long enough for him to take the next step. Steve wished the best for him, but that was about just how deep he wanted to go into Dustin’s love life.

 

It was Saturday and that meant movie night. Dustin picked up a few VHS from work and Steve only hoped that there was at least one that wasn’t horror. The kids seemed to be big fans of the genre, but Steve never liked scary movies that much and since he apparently lived in one, even less so.

 

At home he whipped up some macaroni, enough for an army - essentially that was what he expected. Dustin was sitting at the counter curiously eyeing the pile of files on the end of it, but said nothing about it. Instead he rambled on about some math exam that he didn’t quite get right, but it was okay, ‘cause it wasn’t important.

Talking about school would sound dry and awful for Steve, if not for the kids. They were unbelievably smart, but they had the tendency to focus on stuff that won’t get you a good job as an adult, like video games and looking for monsters from other dimensions. So he was keep nagging them about school and their grades and went as far as to give them the same speech his father gave him years back about this being the simply “most critical time in your life and it will determine your future” garbage and they did laugh at him and did mock him for it, but he knew for a fact that their grades got a pinch better after that. Nancy was a great ally when it came to background information.

So he listened and hummed and was about to tell him, that he had to fix that even if that was a less important test. But then he heard Mike’s car stopping on his driveway and the unmistakable _noise_ that came out of it. That being the music spilling out of his windows mixed with the loud banter of Lucas, Max and Will which became even louder as they neared the front door.

Steve pinched the bridge of his nose, looking at them as they flowed into his kitchen. The door was open of course, awaiting the army of teenagers that pretty much seemed to live here by now. They even had action figures and some clothes here already and their own slippers. He wondered what his parents would say if they’d know just how much time they spent here. Not like it mattered.

“Jesus, do you ever shut up?” he grumbled while stirring the pasta, then the sauce.

“Come on Steve, you know it’s not my fault, Lucas is talking shit!” Mike spit and it looked like it wasn’t a banter after all. It was a fight.

“Am not! You know I’m right! Dustin, tell him!” he whined and Dustin didn’t seem to have the slightest clue of what they were talking about, but his face turned more understanding when Mike raised his voice dangerously high.

“It has nothing to do with him! And in fact not with you either!” Wow, how very sweet. Steve felt touched by all this sentiment.

“How can you say that? And all that shit about the party and staying together was just bullshit then?” Max screamed and Steve was ready to break up a physical fight, but beside that he was pretty much motionless and just tried to understand what was going on first.

“It’s not the end of the world! It’s literally an hour drive from here!”

“Yeah, but we all know how it goes! First you’re gonna come home for every weekend and then- and then in two years we’re happy if we can see you at Christmas!” Lucas was proper shouting now, widely gesturing with his arms, Dustin just glanced back and forth between them with a very concerned expression on his face.

“Guys” he tried with no reaction what so ever.

“That’s not gonna happen-“

“How do you know that?”

“I just do!”

“Well-reasoned, jackass, now we all feel so assured!” Max mocked him and the noise was about to kick-start Steve’s headache.

“Guys, c'mon” tried Dustin with just as much of a success as Steve before.

“Screw you, Max, just because you could leave us on a beat I’m not like that!”

“What?” she was practically shrieking and they started nearing each other, Lucas on the ready to grab Mike, who was about to do the same with Max, while Will was clinging on her arm to hold her back as much as possible, visibly frightened that someone might get hurt.

But Steve just had it. With all of it.

“SHUT UP! All of you. What the fuck’s going on?” For that of course all of them had to start to talk at the same god damn time. “A-a-a. I said shut up. Now, you,” he looked at Mike, who stood there face all flushed, breathing heavily, eyeing him angrily. “What’s this all about? Where are you going?”

“I’m not going anywhere, but this dickhead-“

“A-ah, play nice,” he crossed his arms over his chest.

“Fine,” he gritted through his teeth. “ _Lucas_ thinks that _if_ I go to school in Indianapolis, he won’t see me again, which is bullshit,” he peered over Steve’s shoulder just to look at Lucas while saying that last bit. Steve pinched the bridge of his nose for what it felt like the sixteenth time today.

“Lucas, Max,” he slowly turned around to look them in the eyes and he tried not to smile, he really did. “Do you really think that Mike’s not gonna come back? Aren’t you forgetting something?” They looked at each other and the anger on their face started to give way for confusion.

“It seems, that in your big baby tantrum it slipped your minds, that there is someone in Hawkins, who Mike would never _ever_ leave just like that.” He articulated, like they were a couple of five year olds and to be fair, it was a fitting comparison.

Their faces turned into a stubborn wall, only to crumble down after a few seconds with surrender and a quick coming penance. He knew he won. Because even if Mike could (which Steve didn’t think would be possible) just leave, he couldn’t take El with himself, since the chief would possibly shot some new holes on him if he’d try to pull it off.

And that is without the fact that they fought monsters together for years and if that won’t bond you forever, then he didn’t know what _can_.

“Yeah, and it’s not like I actually wanna go. My dad’s making me,” said Mike and suddenly it made Steve feel sad. This topic hit too close to home.

“But you know, you don’t have to. I mean I’m sure they won’t put you out from home if you wanna stay.” Mike’s face was just as serious as Steve’s voice.

“Yeah, my mom’s trying to convince him. She usually gets what she wants, so…”

 

“Good.” He hoped it would be settled without him, but he definitely will pay a visit to his parents, if that was necessary. “Now shake hands and sit down. Dinner’s ready.” He put his hands on his hips and waited for it to happen. Lucas and Max put out their hands simultaneously without a word and Mike took it, even if he was making a face like he stepped in something sticky.

Steve nodded and then got out the plates and set them up on the counter, grabbed some forks and put a big mixing bowl in the middle with the macaroni inside.

He watched them as they got the food on their plates and slowly started to have a quiet conversation, that obviously turned into a heated argument about some comic book characters that he wished he wouldn’t understand perfectly. He was just standing in the corner and lit a cigarette. He didn’t feel like eating.

 

After dinner they gathered up in the living room, put in the movie Dustin brought, about some kind of zombie virus infecting everyone. Steve tapped Max’s shoulder and gestured to follow him. She still seemed to be upset with him, but Steve didn’t really care. He already told her: he thought she knew.

They were standing in the hall, not far from the others, they still could hear the noise of the TV spilling out of the room.

“How was it with your aunt?” He tried with a smile, but it turned pretty much into a snarl.

“Steeeve” she groaned. “What do you want?”

“We need to talk,” he said seriously “and you know it.”

“I can’t- I don’t know anything, I didn’t even know he’s gone!” she sounded desperate, like she really wanted to say something, but she just _couldn’t_.

“Max, you have to talk to me, tell me what you know,” he sighed. Why does it have to be this complicated? They were friends, it supposed to be as easy as spreading butter on warm toast.

“You know that I don’t know anything,” Max shrugged, but never met his eyes.

“Maybe you do, just not realising it. Look, this is serious shit, this is an investigation, Billy might be just gone, but he might be _missing_ , you have to tell me everything. I know you were there, before he left. Just tell me what happened?”

“I can’t, I can’t tell you everything, but- maybe you should talk to Jason.” Steve frowned.

“Jason Brown?”

“Yeah, I guess, he’s a guy from work, he and Billy, they… hung out. You should talk to him.”

“Okay” he slowly nodded, considering this new information, also noting the tone she used when saying “hung out”. A friend no one ever mentioned? Or was he a possible suspect? And if so, a suspect of what exactly?

Max started to make her way back to the living room, but before actually going in, she turned her head towards him. “And Steve?”

“Yeah?”

“Please, find my stupid brother.”

He just gave her a small smile and hoped that would do for now, because he couldn’t actually promise anything, but yeah, that was the plan.

After getting rid of the elephants in the room the night felt a bit lighter, they all bantered a bit, but overall it was just the usual. He didn’t have to set up the beds, as they were left the same after last night. Everyone retreated and after some whispered discussions they’d slowly fallen asleep.

 

It was still dark and at first Steve wasn’t sure what woke him up, until the sound registered in his brain. Screaming.

It came from the guestroom and he started out of bed so fast he almost fell face forward. He ran down the stairs and turned all the lights up on his way out of habit.

He found himself looking into the face of a terrified Mike and beside him on the floor there was Will screaming and trashing around, getting tangled up in his blanket.

It didn’t happen often anymore, but it wasn’t the first time he had to deal with it.

Mike seemed to finally snap awake, he crawled over to Will, grabbed his shoulders and started to gently shake them, trying to wake him up. Meanwhile Steve peeled him out of his blanket and touched his clammy face, first he tried to be as gentle as possible. He knew it was all to help Will, but he just _hated_ the thought of slapping him and shaking him harder and harder until he regained consciousness.

But it seemed to work, because his eyes slowly opened with a hazy gaze and a horribly tired expression on his face. Steve’s palms became wet from the cold sweat on his face, but he didn’t let go until he was sure Will was looking him right in the eyes.

“You’re home. You’re safe.” He told him as a mantra, like every time. No matter who was with Will, these words were always the first to be said to him. It helped grounding him. It made the aftershock last less longer.

Will’s eyes widened and tears started to gather up in them. Mike was now kneeling beside them, holding Will’s hand in his palms and he watched carefully, mouth agape. Steve was sure he was gripping too tight, but neither of the boys seemed to be aware of it.

“I don’t want to go back in there. I don’t want to…” his voice was high and squeaky, he was crying with utter terror obvious on his face. Steve grabbed him by the shoulder and grasped him firmly. He did what he could do to calm him down, but he was no Jonathan, nor Joyce. They were close, but not unconditional.

“You don’t have to. Ever.” He pulled him in a hug, still holding him with all his might, one hand clutching the shirt on his back, the other in his hair. Technically pushing his forehead into his own chest, to make him feel _solid_. “You don’t have to.” He put his chin on top of Will’s head and they stayed like that until his breathing took up the pace of Steve’s. Mike never let go of him either. Will’s eyes were wide and his face was wet from tears and sweat and red from embarrassment.

Steve knew it must be hard enough for him on a regular basis; he was sixteen years old, but everyone treated him like he was five. But sure enough he’d been kidnapped, then possessed by a dark entity from a different dimension within a year or so, so actually yeah. Steve understood why everyone was so worried about him all the time and now that also included him. He was scared to his core when he had nightmares, for the very reason why Will was terrified too: what if they weren’t nightmares at all?

He slowly let go of Will and his gaze met with Mike’s, who was pale and sweaty and when he looked up, he saw the others standing in the doorway with pretty much the same expression.

“We heard-”

“Is everything-?”

“It’s fine,” he sighed, as he combed his fingers in his hair. “Everything is alright.”

Steve got up and rubbed the last bit of sleep out of his eyes.

“I don’t suppose any of you wanna go back to bed.” They just shook their heads and Steve sighed again. Well tonight was fucked, so let’s just start the day at - he looked at the clock on the wall - three twenty-seven in the morning. Great. _Perfect._ “Fine, I make you some hot chocolate.”

They followed him down to the kitchen on wobbly knees and he felt like his stomach disappeared and left only a void on its place. He wasn’t really in a hot chocolatey place.

The mood soon lightened up as they settled down in the living room, Steve rummaged out a board of Risk, that he never knew he had before the kids found it last summer in the garage. He hoped it would take their minds away from what happened and it kind of worked, although Will’s eyes were still just a bit hollow, but he was smiling so that was good enough for now.

He left them there and went to make some coffee, as there was no more sleep scheduled for tonight. It was already Sunday and he was off from work, so maybe he could rest after the others left. Probably not though.

He leaned his back to the windowsill, waiting for the coffee to brew. He lit a cigarette and his eyes unwittingly darted over to the files on the counter. He wondered if he’s ever going to find Billy. He was a tough nut to crack even when he was here, but now he supposed to crawl into his mind and find out where he could go. Max seemed to be worried about him earlier, but no one else shared her concerns apparently.

No one missed Billy Hargrove.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I mentioned before I didn't intend to involve the kids this much, but it sort of happened? And for some reason the thought of Steve comforting Will made my heart warm up, so.  
> Title from the song Our House by Madness as the line goes "There's always something happening and it's usually quite loud". For me that song despite its happy, melodic base seems like it has a sad undertone, like most of the songs from the 80-90's tbh.  
> Oh, also I know this whole 'impotence' thing seems kind of a stretch, but I promise it'll play a - hopefully - interesting part a few chapters from now.


	4. Polo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who finally decided to grace us with his presence? Yeah, that's right. Kind of.

This whole thing made him feel funny in his chest, with multiple emotions at the same time: anger, sadness and guilt. Guilt, because if he wanted to be honest with himself; he didn’t care more about Billy than anyone else. He didn’t really think about him as a person, it was a case, his first big one actually and he wanted to solve it, prove himself.

But now he had more information and it still looked hopeless. And it was very frustrating, to the point that he went through nearly a pack of cigarettes a day since Mrs Hargrove came into the station. It wasn’t all that unusual per se; when he was stressed he always smoked more than in general (and the nightmares were more prominent too), but the last time he felt like this was when Dustin visited his grandma in Philly about a year ago. There was a horrible snowstorm and he tried to phone over just to check on him, but no one picked up and Steve didn’t _know_ what happened. It was a rough two days, until he finally found out that they were helping out the old lady two houses down.

But this was different. He wasn’t worried, he was flat out frustrated, like he was on the edge of exploding, but he just _couldn’t_.

 

Around ten o'clock Mike took everyone home and Steve was left alone in his big, empty house. The silence was almost unbearable, but he couldn’t sleep even if he’d wanted to. He flipped through the files, until he felt restless again. He knew it was Sunday, he knew he was off, but he had to go and just. Go.

Do something to get closer to the answer.

 

So that’s how he ended up standing outside, in the freezing wind, on the porch of Jason Brown and only remotely feeling sorry for ringing the bell on a Sunday morning, but people tended to be more indulgent with the police, so.

A tall, blond woman came to the door, her eyes were warm in the cold air. She looked surprised by the visit, but smiled at him kindly nonetheless.

“Hello, can I help you?”

“Hi, I’m Officer Harrington, can I talk to Jason? I’m looking for one of his colleagues, maybe he could help me find him,” he said politely with a fake smile plastered on his face.

“Of course, of course, come on in, I’ll get him for you,” she seemed very nice and although Steve was about to wait outside, she grabbed his arm and gently tugged him in and sat him down on the sofa.

As he listened to the receding sound of her slippers, he looked around; on the fireplace there were pictures of the family, two kids and the parents, honest smiles and happy aura in nice wooden frames. It was nice, heart-warming even. But all Steve was thinking about is his own walls at home with the pictures about dry sunflowers and a dog that belonged to no one he knew. His mom put them up too many years ago and although he hated them, didn’t care enough to get rid of them. Maybe when he got home, he thought absently.

She came back with Jason at her heels, who looked a bit shaky and confused. He had a shade darker hair, than his mom, but the same warm eyes.

“Would you like some coffee or tea?” She chirped and started to make her way towards where Steve suspected the kitchen was.

“Thank you, but it only should take a few minutes,” he waved it off and pinned his gaze on Jason as he sat down opposite to him on a big chair, one with a cover that had ugly flowers printed on it.

They’ve been left alone.

“Jason, I need to ask you a few questions, but I promise it’ll be quick.”

“I- is this about Billy? Because whatever he’d done, I haven’t seen him in a month and-“

“No, what, no” he shook his head in confusion. “What do you mean if he’d done something?”

“Well, I told him he’s gonna get in trouble, the Chief let him go so many times, but I was sure he’s gonna end up in a cell soon enough…”

Steve stored this information for later, to ask Hopper just what the fuck and why didn’t he mentioned that when he let him take the case. He swallowed his anger, before it would show and turned back to Jason.

“He’s not in trouble. Or maybe he is, that’s what I’m trying to figure out. Jason, Billy’s missing.” The shock on Jason’s face was obvious and there was something else too, that he wasn’t able to pinpoint.

“M-missing? Like… for real?”

“Yes. So you say you saw him like a month ago?”

“Yeah, right, yes. Uh, actually, about three weeks ago, after work, we hung out at the bar and then he told me- he told me that-“ he seemed to be looking for the right words and Steve noticed that he pressed the words “hung out” the same way as Max did and there was something that they fucking didn’t tell him and he was getting increasingly pissed by the second.

“Jason, were you doing drugs or-?”

“No, Jesus, of course not!” He looked genuinely offended by the thought, so Steve figured there must be something else then.

“Okay, so then tell me what were you doing. I can’t promise that you won’t get in trouble, but I need to know so I can find Billy and you might be the only person who could help me right now,” he started out nice, but went in for it, just in case he wasn’t convincing enough, “but I can tell, that you’re trying to withhold information and that’s called obstruction of justice and actually, I can take you in for that.”

“Man, you play hard,” he said with a shaky little laugh. “Look, I’ll talk, but you can’t tell this to my parents or anyone, okay? They’ll kill me.” He peered anxiously towards the kitchen.

He sounded quite serious, so he just nodded.

“We were kind of a- a thing. Like, you know, we went out and stuff.”

“Oh.” And oh indeed. It explained so much, how could he not think about this before? Of course Billy fucking Hargrove was not impotent, he was just gay. And some good detective Steve was not seeing it before. He wanted to set fire in the hearth and put his head into it. Instead he just tried to pull himself together and control all the buzzing thoughts in his brain. He still had a case on his hands after all.

He shut his mouth that was apparently hanging open and shook his head a little.

“Okay. So what did he tell you? When you last saw him, I mean?”

“He broke up with me,” he shrugged half-heartedly, but he couldn’t really hide the bitterness in his eyes.

“How long have you been-?”

“Couple o’ months.”

“Did he say why? Maybe something about leaving or someone new in his life?

“Man, he was talking about leaving all the damn time. He hated here, his dad is an asshole and he always said that one day, he’s gonna grab his stuff and drive to Chicago or whatever.”

“Do you think it’s possible that he broke up with you, because he knew he’s going to leave for real?”

“Nah, he broke up with me because he hasn’t got a heart and I was the only faggot in this god forsaken town and that I was a good fuck, but he got bored of me.” Seeing how taken aback Steve was by this, he added: “His words, not mine. But he might have left anyway. I never thought he would actually go through with it, though.” He shook his head in disbelief.

They sat there in silence for a few moments. Steve felt a blooming curiosity in his chest and he thought, maybe one more question shouldn’t hurt.

“Were you with him for the same reason? I mean, because there was no one else?”

“You know, he’s a psycho, but sometimes he can be just… I don’t know. Normal.”

Steve nodded stiffly.

“Well, thank you for time.” Steve stood up and held out his hand, Jason grabbed it and shook it firmly.

“If you remember anything useful, you can call the station anytime.”

“Will do,” he nodded sincerely.

 

He left the house with a buzzing head, his restlessness lingering, like a dark could before the storm. Jason said Billy was with him, because he was the only gay guy in town. And strictly speaking Steve didn’t know if that was true or not, but he knew it for sure, that he was somewhat part of the statistics. It was a weird epiphany and a deep secret of his, that he never planned on putting it out there. Ever.

It was a part of him, that he just suppressed and ignored for years. He could easily lie to others, but he couldn’t lie to himself, not when in the loneliness of his shower the thoughts of naked chests and firmly shaped cocks got him to his climax more often than not. Not that he didn’t like tits and soft, round shapes, but every time when he thought about giving himself to someone stronger and touching a muscley bicep, it made him twitch in his pants.

But luckily he didn’t have to worry about spilling that secret, because as Billy put it; there were no guys in this town who would fuck him. And that was good as it was, but it kind of sucked too.

 

 

Two days have passed and nothing happened. No new witnesses, no new information. Steve started to lose all of that tiny little hope, he held onto. Maybe it was just his tiredness, as he barely slept in these days. His nightmares were vivid and made him want to stay inside forever.

He dreamt about hungry mouths ripping him open and tearing him apart. He dreamt about the junkyard and shadows lurking in the fog.

But now it was Wednesday and he was out patrolling, which actually meant that he drove around Hawkins lazily, stopping at the diner time to time to get some coffee and pancakes. It was freezing cold, even with the car’s heating on, snow was falling heavily since early morning, almost constantly.

He only had an hour more and then he could go back to the station and sit down and do nothing more until the end of the day. As exciting as it sounded, he kind of wished something would happen. Soon.

Funnily enough, for that thought, his radio started to crackle.

 “Steve, come in, are you there? I know you’re out on patrol, but we found something.”

Hearing Hopper’s voice tensed him up and almost made him pretend that he wasn’t there. But he wanted to know what they’ve found, even if it probably could wait ‘til he got back to the station.

“’m here. What’s up?”

“We found the Hargrove kid’s car.” Or maybe it couldn’t.

“What? Where?” He was two streets down from the main road, but already started to turn the car around.

“On 124, close to Lincolnville.”

“I’m on my way.” A small crack signalled the end of the conversation.

Finally. They found Billy’s car which meant soon enough they’re going to find him or his body - Steve didn’t care which - and then he can close the case.

He stepped on the gas and half an hour later he was pulling down on the side of the road, when he saw Hopper’s car, some police tapes and signs.

The Camaro was about five feet away from the road, parking diagonally just few steps away from the woods.

 

“We’ve had a call in about the car and Callahan recognised the plate number,” Hopper said as they walked alongside the car and Steve just nodded along while examining the outside of the car. It was suspiciously fine, shiny even. That is until he reached the hood, which had a huge depression in the middle of it. “I already called Ben, but he said he won’t be able to come out unless the snow falters.” Ben was the owner of the tow truck business in town. So it meant the car stays.

Steve just nodded once again and opened the driver’s side door. On the inside there were some empty beer cans and cigarette packs, an ashtray on the dashboard, half full. There were some clothes and a toothbrush thrown haphazardly on the back seat and an oily paperbag was sitting on the floor.

He sat down behind the wheel and first he opened the glovebox, there were the usual papers, Billy’s licence and some chewing gum. He opened down one of the sun visors, there was nothing in the first one, but then he opened down the one just right above his head and an envelope fell into his lap.

He carefully turned it around, but there was no name or address or anything really, it was completely blank.

He opened it and he found a sheet of paper folded in two, the ink was such a dark blue, that the writing was peeking through from the other side of it.

The corners of the letter were a bit crumbled, like it had been pulled out from the envelope, just to be put back again many times. He folded it out on the steering wheel and started to run through the lines. It was a goodbye letter, but it wasn’t like the ones people live before committing suicide, those were full of forgiveness and sayings like “it’s not your fault” “it’s the right decision” “be happy” and all that crap, but this was pure cold. The whole thing just explained that his dad and stepmom were horrible people and he had enough and he knew they’re gonna break Max just like they broke him and pretty much closed it off with a ‘hope you rot in hell’ and that was it. It wasn’t the usual touchy-feely goodbye, but it was undoubtedly Billy’s own. Steve snorted out a short laugh getting to the end, where was a small drawing of a hand giving the finger. Very original.

He never would’ve strike Billy down as a person who’d leave a letter, but yet again he never would’ve think that he was abused at home, so.

He got out of the car and gave the letter to Hopper and walked around just to take a better look at the back of the car, opened up the trunk, which contained more clothes, a few blankets and some extra gasoline for the tank. He was definitely ready for a long drive.

The chief furrowed his brows and looked up from the letter.

“So that’s it then.”

“Mm” was Steve’s answer, while he kneeled down to see the underside of the car.

“Why would he leave the letter in his car?” Hopper was technically thinking out loud and Steve had not much to add to that.

 “Don’t know,” his voice was pretty much a mumble from underneath the car, while he was checking the pipes, ass pointing towards the sky.

“Well, either ways, he left a letter, left his car and went god knows where, but it’s not our problem anymore.” He pointed at him with his cigarette as he talked. Steve climbed back out and brushed the snow off of himself easily.

“What do you mean?”

“Well we know that he wanted to leave, must’ve hit a deer or something, so he left the car and took the bus. There is just a station in five minutes up the road.”

“I don’t know, I mean if he wanted to leave the letter, why didn’t he just leave it at home?” He asked raising an eyebrow and just to do something with his hands, fumbled around his chest pocket to find his pack of smokes.

“You said there was a fight and that he left in a hurry,” he pointed out. “He didn’t have the time.”

Steve put a cigarette in his mouth and hummed around it as he looked for a lighter. It made sense, sure. But Steve had a hunch. And he valued that over _facts_.

Hopper huffed, as he lit his cigarette for him, but he only looked mildly annoyed.

“Right, okay, I know it sounds weird, but I just _know_. I have a feeling-“

“So you have a feeling. And you wanna base this case on that instead of what we actually know.”

“Well, yeah. Look, I understand it seems crazy, but it won’t hurt anyone if I keep up the investigation for a little longer. In fact almost no one gives a shit about him, if he’s dead or alive. But if I close the case and stop looking and it turns out that something really happened to him, Max’s gonna kill me. And I don’t know if you met her lately, but she can be a fucking nightmare,” he said it only half-jokingly and he saw it on the chief’s face that he was considering their options. “Please. Just let me find him.”

He sighed and rubbed his hand over his face. Steve’s already knew that he won.

“Fine. But you better be right.”

They stood there in silence for a while, just puffing smoke into the air around them, when Steve remembered something.

“Good. And now that the case is still running,” he started out with a more tense tone than he wanted it to be “when did you want to tell me that you let him get away?”

“What are you talking about, kid?”

“I talked to Jason Brown and apparently you took Billy in a couple o’ times, but never held him in. So when did you wanna tell me?”

“It wasn’t relevant.”

“EVERYTHING is relevant in a missing person case. That’s what you told me before. You said that even an unfinished sandwich could be important,” he referred to the first few months of training he had with Hopper, while gesturing widely with his arms, drawing a thin line in the air with the sparkling end if his cigarette. “ _Come to me if you need anything?_ You’re so full of it,” he added bitterly.

“FINE. You’re right, I fucked up, but it _isn’t_ important. I only took him in, because I was keep finding him in drunk fights. But he was troubled, I won’t hold in a kid for going through some shit at home!” He raised his voice to match Steve’s, who was now looking at him with his mouth hanging open.

“You knew,” he whispered alarmingly low. “You knew it before and didn’t tell me.” His tone was even, but then he felt that he’s losing control, as his shoulders started to tremble and his chest felt too tight. “You knew and didn’t do shit about it! Maybe he’s as asshole, but his dad deserves to be behind bars! It’s fucked up! You are fucked up!” He dropped his cigarette butt on the ground, didn’t even care for stepping on it.

“Look kid, it’s complicated,” Hopper sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

“Yeah? Well, it looks pretty simple for me.”

Steve started towards his car, but turned around one more time, just to twist the knife. “El deserves better,” he spat out of spite and immediately regretted it, but didn’t take it back, didn’t give a sign, just walked to his car, slammed the door as loud as he could. “No one touches the fucking car. I’ll come back for it later,” he shouted through his halfway down window and drove away, leaving Hopper standing on the side of the road helplessly.

He wasn’t even paying attention to where he’s going, he just wanted to leave. Steve was angry and he knew he acted childish and that he’s probably going to apologise for this first time tomorrow, but now there was too much on his mind to really care.

After roaming the streets of Hawkins for what seemed like eternity, he ended up home after all, parking his car diagonally on the driveway, aggressively slamming every door in the house and stomping around like a bewildered animal.

He felt furious, stressed and frustrated and it was all Billy Hargrove’s fault. And wasn’t that just ridiculous how he could torment him without even being there?

He groaned out in desperation.

He slumped down on his bed and buried his head in his hands. Deep breaths. In an out. In and out.

After a few minutes it became natural and finally he started to think clearer. He tried to sort everything out in his head.

They’ve found Billy’s car. Billy’s missing. Hop was an ass. Billy’s gay. No one tells him anything. He left a letter. He didn’t leave. _Billy was missing._

He dropped down on his back, looking at the ceiling. This whole case got Steve way too emotional and he didn’t really understand why.

He was mad at Hopper, although he knew he was right, it didn’t matter after all, that he didn’t tell him. But it just hurt Steve that Hopper would let some child abuser go. Like okay, Billy was a shithead and he might have deserved a few slaps and punches now, but Steve couldn’t imagine any reason you would hit a nine-year-old child and Max was still _living_ there. How could he just let it slide?

There was a feeling washing over him, not quite like an epiphany, but close enough. Hopper would never let him get away with it if he didn’t have a good reason for it, right? Which he didn’t even ask, just shouted him down, throw some acidic words at him and left him there on the side of the road. He felt awful.

 

 

He laid there, hating himself for a long time, but he knew he can’t lay there forever, hating himself on the other hand…

When he finally sat up, something made a rustling noise in his back pocket. Apparently he still had Billy’s letter, he must have grabbed it from Hopper’s hand, although he had no recollection of it, as he was blind with fury then.

He opened it and run through it again, more carefully this time. His handwriting was surprisingly neat and even though Steve was no expert, he could tell that it wasn’t just scribbled down in hurry. It was carefully planned and there was no patches or crossed words in it. It was his final goodbye and there was no regret, only hate and rage. Like Billy himself.

Steve wished he would have a clue where he might be, but at this point all the threads ended. And wasn’t that just ironic? Everything and everyone told him that he probably just left. Up ‘til this point even Steve was so sure that he’d left and now that he had a goodbye letter, he didn’t think that anymore.

He made his way downstairs and meanwhile placing the envelope beside Billy’s picture in his pocket. Somehow it felt important, like the closest lead of all. Like it could tell him where to look. Like hope, false hope, but still.

Steve was giving up on the case, squeezing out the last drops of his willingness to find Billy. A few more days, that’s what he said. And after that if he won’t find him, he had to close the case, like Billy just ran away and the frustration he felt since the first time he talked to Mrs Hargrove pressured him more than ever before, he had a pounding headache accompanied by the guilt about Hopper.

And that didn’t help, that it was Wednesday, one day before Christmas and he was official for dinner at the Byers. Nancy’s gonna be there as well of course and it seemed like Joyce only made these dinners to make sure that Jonathan socialises a little, which was fine, really. It just seemed that every parent in Hawkins decided to put their kids in the care of Steve Harrington. He didn’t really mind it actually, it was nice to hang out with guys who were actually his age and he liked Jonathan. Now.  
Of course years back he could kill him, well not really, because he was always stronger and the guy did know how to throw a punch. But figuratively speaking.

Anyways he was less of a creep now and Steve didn’t really care about Nancy in a romantic way anymore, so. Dinners were good.

He thought about the two of them sometimes. How they fit better together. When he was with Nancy it was a struggle to find anything to do with her at first, because they just didn’t have much in common, but he loved Nancy. God, he never loved anyone before or since that much. But they just weren’t a match. And it was hard to accept and painful too, but now here they were years after and Nancy and Jonathan was still going strong and Steve wasn’t in love with Nancy anymore, but he loved her almost the same and was happy for her.

After they broke up, there were a few months when they didn’t really talk, even though he was driving by their house often enough to take the kids. But then one day Nancy came up to him with an invite for a barbecue at her house and it was hell of an awkward day, but slowly it got better and now the three of them were just as close, as the rest of the party.

 

He supposed to be there around six and the clock on the kitchen wall showed twelve forty-three. Steve decided that he shouldn’t give any more reason for Nancy and Jonathan to give him those very annoying ‘are you alright?’ looks, so he took a shower, finally shaved off his stubble and fixed up his hair. When he looked at the mirror, the only things that stood out were the bags under his eyes. But there was not much he could do about that.

It must do, he thought and went downstairs to get a coffee.

He sat down at the counter, looked into the files just out of habit and flipped through his own notes. Something bugged him and it was like a scratch at the back of his skull, like a careful watch on his back that disappeared in the moment when he turned around, a strong feeling that came and went before he could put his finger on it.

Around three thirty his parents called, to wish him a Merry Christmas. They said, it was because the lines were always so busy around Christmastime it would be impossible to phone over later. He talked to his mom, who assured him that his dad also wishes him happy holidays, just he’s too busy to come to the phone. But they both knew that was a lie. His dad haven’t spoken to him since Steve told him for the last time, that he won’t take over the family business, when he officially joined the Police Department. That was about a week before they moved away.

The truth was, they never really talked much before either, his dad told him what he wants from him, what he has to do, how he has to behave and that was it. Even the annual family holidays that they used to take, went the same every year; they drove together to somewhere nice and in hours after arriving, he had to leave for work. And that was about the same at home as well. He only saw his father for brief times, while he gave the list of expectations. Hell, he went out with Nancy for a year and they’ve only met twice, he wasn’t even sure, that his dad knew her name.

So now? He barely noticed the difference. Sure enough his mom acted like nothing has happened and that was just how she was ever since he was a kid. Steve thought that maybe he inherited her ability to pretend that everything was normal.

 

He talked about the kids vaguely and his plans for Christmas (which meant patrolling in the morning and then staying home behind closed doors) and then he mentioned Billy’s case.

“Poor boy, must be really hard on his parents now, I don’t know what would I do if you’d go missing.”

Probably wouldn’t even notice it, thought Steve bitterly, but didn’t say it.

“Yeah, well they don’t really care. His stepmom only came in after two weeks and his dad practically told me that he doesn’t wanna see him again,” he sighed. He was leaning to the wall, playing with the phone’s cord, curling and uncurling it around his fingers.

“That’s such a horrible thing to say.”

“Don’t feel too bad for him, guy’s a jerk.”

“Steven!” She huffed over the phone. “Just because someone’s not the nicest person, they don’t deserve to… well whatever happened to the poor boy. I hope you’re gonna find him and their parents realise what they have lost.”

He highly doubted that would ever happen, but didn’t want to go into the topic too deep with his mom, he might have found himself saying something that he just _shouldn’t_.

“Yeah, maybe,” he said instead and averted the topic to the neighbour’s. His mom always loved to discuss other people’s lives. She was the biggest gossip of the street.

 

 

He arrived to the Byers thirty minutes early, but he just couldn’t stay put anymore. The dinner was nice and Steve finally felt a bit more normal and less like someone stuck in a press machine.

They ate and had coffee and he and Joyce buried the living room in a thin coat of smoke, while they were talking about Jonathan’s new job at the photo place in town. It wasn’t an actual photographer job per se, but it was a bit closer to it and payed way better than the store he used to work in.  
Nancy told them about her latest classes at the university and overall it was calm and sweet. Steve even felt happy for a moment, until he remembered what kind of day he had leading up to this point and then he suck in a bigger breath and forced himself to smile harder. Because Nancy had an unearthly talent to spot if he was feeling off and he just didn’t want to talk about it, didn’t want to ruin the night.

Around eight o'clock Will joined them, so they talked a bit more about school and after nine Steve was about to take his leave. He knew that Joyce wouldn’t even mind him sleeping there, probably none of them would, but Nancy wasn’t home that often, mostly just around the holidays and in the summer and he didn’t want to waste the little time they had together with Jonathan.

But he did call Jonathan with him to the porch before he’d leave.

“What’s wrong, Steve?” He put his hands in his pockets and shivered a little bit as Steve closed the door behind them.

He looked through the window to make sure no one is listening from the inside. They were all sitting at the kitchen table, in the softly glowing light.

“It’s about Will. He’s got nightmares again. Tough ones too.” He combed his fingers into his hair, leaving it standing up a little bit on the top.

Jonathan’s face went a shade darker, but he didn’t say anything.

“They were staying over the other night and he was thrashing around and screaming and I don’t know… I haven’t seen him like that for a long time. Just… look out for him.” They both looked in the direction of the kitchen.

“Thanks, man. I’ll talk to him.”

“Don’t tell your mom though, I mean she kinda knows, but Will’s gonna kill me for telling you about last night.” This time he combed his hair slightly to the left. Still looked ridiculous, but it didn’t seem to matter in the dark. Jonathan nodded shortly.

 

“Yeah, I don’t wanna stress her out anyway. She was so happy lately,” he said and it was true. The monsters were gone, the government was gone, what’s left was only little boring Hawkins and new strong bonds and school and work and just. Normal stuff. So her worries let up a little bit, not too much, but now she let others drive Will around - although not anybody, but Mike or Max or even Steve. But if she found out about the nightmares, maybe everything would go back to how it was before and none of them wanted that. Will seemed happier too.

“Yeah, I know… “ and it was almost a whisper. “Take care of them,” he pointed towards the house with his thumb. “They need you.”

“And who’s gonna take care of you?” Jonathan looked actually _worried_ and yeah he had a point, and yeah he had all the rights to feel that way, but it still pissed Steve off just a little.

“I can take care of myself.” Jonathan looked like someone kicked his puppy and Steve just _didn’t get it_. He had enough on his plate, than to worry about Steve, who by the way was a police officer and who could take care of someone better than the police? He cringed for that thought, but stood his ground. “Really, I’m fine.”

“You don’t look like it. Actually, you look like…“ he started, but then faltered, “it doesn’t matter. I’m gonna go check on the others, maybe I can get Will alone before bedtime. Thanks again,” he slapped his palm on Steve’s shoulder and he couldn’t actually feel his touch because of the thickness of his jacket, but he felt the weight of it and a slight grip. “Merry Christmas, Steve.”

“Merry Christmas,” he mumbled, watching Jonathan going back to the house. He stood there, on the porch, in the freezing cold and wondered just what Jonathan wanted to say exactly.

He got in his car and thought about his dark, empty house and about tomorrow. He had to talk to the chief and apologise and while he was at it, try to find out the reason while he never actually arrested Billy. He had a feeling, that if he found that out, maybe he’d found out why Billy never actually left, like he wanted to.

And he thought that he should just read the letter one more time, maybe he overlooked something, a clue, anything. Maybe he should look for more evidence in the car.

_The car._

God fucking damn it, he forgot about the car.

It was a short drive and the roads were almost entirely empty, but the dark and the rapidly falling snow made it hard to see. He parked his car not far behind the Camaro and stopped the engine.

No matter the thick jeans, the cold bit into his thighs all the same. The frozen ground and fresh snow was crunching and screeching under his feet.

When he got into Billy’s car it was freezing inside, which was understandable, but not less annoying. He rubbed his hands together, puffing some warm air over them and he knew eventually it’s gonna help, but right now it was fucking useless. The snow seemed to fall faster by minute and quite a lot already built up on the windshield. He got his flashlight out of his pocket and turned it around the car, looking for something useful.

He looked into the glovebox, he’d done that at the first time as well, but now he averted the light on the documents and read them through properly. The car was on Billy’s name, his licence was in there too. On the picture he had longer hair, than when he last saw him and his face was serious, it was pretty different from the one in his pocket. Everything was there, neatly put in a stack. And that was it.

Steve couldn’t see anything else, this seemed to be all that’s left after Billy Hargrove. He was gone and this car was his last statement; broken and abandoned. And all it told Steve is that he should leave. He should run and he _knew_ things that can make you run.

He put his flashlight on the dashboard. He tried to turn on the heating, but it didn’t seem to work and just out of curiosity he started to play the tape in the radio. He kind of expected something like Mötley Crüe or Dangerous Toys, but instead there was a mellow tune playing.

It was a terribly old song, so old that Steve only ever heard it once or twice in the radio, back when he was a kid, still he recognised it straight away. Steve frowned. He would never have guessed that Billy listened to anything like this and maybe it was an early gift from someone, but then why would he keep it even then?

Knowing him, he would just throw the tape away, though he wasn’t so sure he knew Billy anymore. He remembered him from high school and he ran into him time to time, but they never talked, just eyed each other spitefully. But now everyone was telling Steve things that - didn’t quite changed his mind, but - made him think more and more about Billy.

He didn’t like him much more than before, sure now he could reason his behaviour, but that was what it was: a reason, not an excuse. Despite that, he wasn’t angry at him anymore for beating his face in; it happened three years ago and although he left him with some serious injuries back then, lots of people pinned him to the ground since. The thought made him sigh.

A desperate feeling started to take him over as he felt so, so hopeless again. Nothing seemed to lead anywhere with this whole case, just running circles round and round. And it was fucked up, like Billy was fucked up, like Steve felt fucked up.

Something about the song, or the case made him feel sad. Even if he didn’t like Billy, god only knew where he was right now and it was Christmas Eve in a day and he wasn’t here, where he supposed to be and Steve just felt _sad_ for him. The more he learned about Billy, the more he felt scrambled on the inside. Maybe it was pity, he wasn’t sure, or he could just relate to him, because he thought about leaving Hawkins so many times and never even said it out loud and apparently Billy _wanted_ to leave, but for some reason couldn’t.

Steve thought about how somehow this song never seemed to be as eerie as now, sitting in a car in the cold night, only steps away from the dark mouth of the forest. Steve shivered and rubbed his hands around his shoulders.

_In the pines, in the pines  
Where the sun never shines_

The song went on and he felt like suffocating, or more like slowly drowning in black sludge. He was gasping for air, gripped the steering wheel with whitening fingers.

_And we shiver when the cold wind blows_

Maybe it was because once there was a girl who died in his pool, maybe it was because he just never cared enough about that.

_A long steel rail and a short cross tie_

 “God damn it. Fucking shit. FUCKING. SHIT.” He shouted and slammed the steering wheel with his fists and slammed it again just for good measures. And again. And again. “Give me a sign, you fucking bastard! Where did you _go_?”

 

_I'm on my way back home_

And for that suddenly his flashlight started to flicker and the air hitched in Steve. “No,” he said and tried to shake it, maybe just the batteries. Yeah, definitely. Except that he just changed them last week. “No, no, no.”

It stopped flashing, but he felt like he fell into deep, cold water, where he was just swimming and swimming towards the surface, but couldn’t reach it no matter how hard he tried. He had to get out of the car. He just had to _get out_ of it.

He reached behind his back and opened the door, grabbing his torch he practically fell backwards. Out of the car, into the snow.

_What have I done, that makes you treat me so?_

Through the closed door the music was spilling out in a slow, quiet wave and he was just sitting there watching the Camaro, like it could take off any moment by itself.

_You caused me to weep, you caused me to mourn  
You caused me to leave my home_

Tearing his gaze away, he looked around nervously. There were big, leafless trees everywhere, but he spotted something that just _wasn’t there_ until now. It was red and glowing in the trunk of a tree nearby. Steve swallowed hard, but got up and walked over to it anyways, while keep muttering “no, no, no” under his breath.

_In the pines, in the pines  
Where the sun never shines_

When he neared in, his fears were confirmed instantly. There was a window-like hole on the tree, that looked like it’d been slashed in there with a big sword. Big enough to cut through dimensions.

The whole thing was like a halfway healed (and still healing) scar with a semi-transparent reddish layer over it, like scab. It was a bit hard to see through it, but still he walked closer, his nose almost touching, his eyes widened from shock. From the distance he still could hear the song fading away.

_And we shiver when the cold wind blows_

Now he knew. He knew exactly where Billy was.

 

He stood there frozen for seconds, maybe minutes, just watching Billy, who was showing his back to him, but Steve knew it was him. It had to be. When he finally gathered himself together, Steve laid his palms on the sticky material looking through its foggy image.

“Billy!” He shouted, but he couldn’t hear him. But it must have been him, it must. He recognised the dirty blonde hair and broad shoulders.

There was some kind of growling sound coming from the hole and when Billy looked towards its direction, he started to run. Just ran away, out of Steve’s view. After him a big, doglike shadow. Bigger than Steve ever saw.

“Billy! BILLY!” He tried to scratch the surface, but it just didn’t _take_ , he grabbed his gun and fired until it was empty, but the hole was keep getting smaller and the bullets didn’t seem to hurt it one bit.

 

He’d come to the realisation that he has to tell El. Why haven’t he talked to El before? He should’ve asked for her help already, he knew about Will’s nightmares and his own and… and she could find anyone, he should have just _ask her_ at the first place.

He jumped in his car, chucked his torch on the passenger seat and dropped his key three times, before he could finally fit it into the ignition. Drove away with way over the speed limit, towards Hopper’s cabin. His heartrate was probably over a hundred and no matter how hard he tried to breathe slowly in and out, it just didn’t work. Steve gripped the steering wheel hard enough to make his knuckles whiten, he was stepping on the gas hard and he wished he could just finally wake up. Even though he was well aware that it wasn’t a dream. He felt like he might vomit and there was a chance that he was going mad, because all in all there was one thing that made him feel _hope_.

 

He shouted Marco into the howling abyss and Billy finally shouted Polo back from the bottom of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh, guys. It took me soo long to finish this chapter. I had to rewrite it like a million times, because of all the small details that had to line up with the upcoming ones. Also I found the _perfect_ song for this, but then it wasn't fitting in the time period and I take that stuff rather seriously, so yeah... This song was about my sixth pick.  
> Well I hope you enjoyed it. I try to update at some point soon, but I might not be able to do that for like two weeks, because I'm gonna visit my family in a different country. But don't worry I already have quite a lot done, so it shouldn’t be a problem to finish it up, when I’m back.  
> Until then, know that I love you all.


	5. Steve the Brave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve heads into the Upside Down to save Billy. Things couldn't be simpler, now could they?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I'm still here and I'm still working on this.  
> I just had a few rough weeks, so I wasn't able to pull myself through the drafts, but on the brightside, I always work on two chapters at the same time (because I usually write them as one), so you can expect the next update way sooner, than this one.  
> Also it was sooo great to finally write Billy again, you can't imagine!

He parked his car with such a momentum, that it slid sideways a few inches in the snow. He grabbed the keys from the ignition at the same time as his foot hit the ground beside the car. He wasn’t about to lie to himself, he was fucking terrified. Every nightmare he ever had led up to this scenario.

The monsters were back. The gate was open and soon enough demodogs will be swarming around Hawkins, but they were ready. Well, as ready as one can be. They had plans and code names and weapons and protecting equipment and there was Eleven. Sweet, little El, who was trying to be normal for years, but yet again she had to be the one to save them. And then there was Steve.

Yes, there was Steve, who was not gonna let _anything_ happen to anyone here. He knew what he had to do and he thought he knew how. He only needed a little help and for that he needed them to agree to his plan, which is obviously gonna be hard, because they never listen.

He smashed both his fists repeatedly into the door as rapidly as he could. Damn his guilt, damn his childish behaviour, he’s just gonna apologise and hope that Hopper cares more about the monsters, than him being a prick.

The door opened up so suddenly that Steve almost punched Hopper in the chest, when he appeared at the doorway.

The confusion on his face quickly shifted into a very concerned look, when he looked into Steve’s wide eyes.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry what I said, earlier, I was angry and I didn’t think and-“

“Slow down kid, it’s okay,” he said seemingly being relieved by the thought of Steve being upset about that argument and not something else, but he was quick to correct him on that.

“No, it’s not, nothing is okay. I found Billy.”

Hopper looked over his shoulder and squinted to see if he was in the car, but there was no one. Which Steve already knew and _they had no time for this_.

“Hop, look, listen, they’re back. They’re back and Billy’s there and we have to- we have to-“ he was babbling and slurring the words together as he just tried to get to the point _fast_. But he also knew that he had to slow down and articulate. The only problem was that he was getting more out of control, seconds by seconds.

Hopper’s face went rigid, grabbed his upper arm and pulled him inside, where was already standing- Eleven. And Mike apparently.

Both of them had a nest of a hair and it was obvious that Steve just woke them up with the big noise he’d made.

Hopper shut the door with a loud thud and that brought back Steve into reality once again.

Yeah, right. Monsters.

“They’re back?” Eleven asked and her face was somewhat dark, but not quite clear if she was angry, sad or scared, but Steve instinctively stepped a little closer to give comfort, if needed.

He nodded and licked his lips in stress.

“I found Billy. There was a hole not far from his car, he was in there. And there was a demodog chasing him.” He buried his fingers in his hair and looked at Hopper. He knew the _protocol_.

“I’ll call everyone here. We have to come up with a plan.”

“Yeah, about that-” Steve started, but never got to finish.

“Together.”

And with that he walked over to the phone in the hallway and dialled a number which Steve knew to be the Byers’.

“Hi, Joyce” Hopper’s voice was all syrup and honey, fake as fuck. “I know it’s a short notice, but my aunt Stacy just got into town and if you wanna, we could have a late night dinner together. Yeah, yeah, right.”

Steve didn’t hear the answer, but soon enough Hopper was already dialling a different number, giving the same bullshit over the receiver.

They haven’t been monitored for a while now, well not that they know of, but they could never risk talking about this over the phone.

And then they waited. For everyone to come, to demodogs to appear. Whatever.  
Steve sat down at the kitchen table and hid his face in his hands. He had a plan. It’s gonna be fine. It’s gonna be _fine_.

He took deep breaths and tried to focus. This was the time to pull himself together, to be strong, be brave. Or act like it anyways.

That’s what he did all the time back then. He fought, like he wasn’t shitting his pants, like he couldn’t get injured anyway. Bullshit.

In record time everyone was there, buzzing in Hopper’s living room, the kids talking over each other, yet not knowing what’s really going on. After they went quiet, Steve briefed them in a few words. Really there wasn’t much to say, since he didn’t know better either.

“So does that mean, that the gate is open again?” Asked Dustin and Steve wasn’t sure about the answer, but he pinned his gaze on Will.

He looked terrified, Steve didn’t blame him, he felt the same. But if he wanted to be honest, he kind of expected Joyce to lock Will away by now. Small miracles, he figured. Although he was sitting between his mom and Jonathan, nervously bouncing his knees.

“No,” said Eleven frowning, which made Steve snap his head around, giving his neck a painful crack.

“How do you know?”

“I don’t feel it. It’s small, it’s different,” she said thoughtfully.

“So if it’s not open, then what?” Steve was on the edge of freaking out, but tried not to show any of it for the sake of the others. But he could tell that they thought about the same. If the gate isn’t open and there was just that hole, then is there any more? And if so, can that eventually lead to the Mind Flayer to come back? And if not, does that mean that Billy’s trapped in there for good?

Steve felt his headache saying ‘hi’ again.

“Just a hole, it’s closed now.”

“So what? Billy’s just trapped in there?” Max cut in and her voice was creeping up higher with every word.

“Looks like it:” Hopper walked around in a tiny circle, scratching his beard.

“What if it’s a trap?” asked Mike cautiously.

“Of who? Billy?” Steve looked baffled. “No offence, but if it’d be a set up, I don’t think Billy would expect me to go after him.” He shook his head. “Besides, he didn’t even see me.”

“Are you sure it was him?” The question came from Will, unsure.

Steve groaned out in exasperation. “Of course, I’m sure!” He spread his arms widely, before putting them back, hugging his torso in defence. “Who else could it be? He’s missing, no one saw him for weeks, _I know_ what I saw.”

“But… if he’s missing for weeks. How could he possibly survive?” Dustin asked slowly and Steve felt sick. This whole mess was increasingly scarier and more frustrating the more he thought about it.

“I don’t know! Okay? I have no idea, but he was there. And so was a demodog by the way, so…”

Everyone looked at him with a weird expression, fear mixed with pity. Like he was the one in danger of getting mauled to death.

There was a moment of silence in the room. Steve sighed.

“El, you can open and close the gate, right?” Steve asked carefully and she slowly nodded.

“Yes.”

“So then we can save Billy, right?” Max was somewhere on the edge of desperation and hope. Or probably in a pit between the two.

“Yes.”

“This is insane! We didn’t close the gate, just to open it again!” Joyce said, wrapping her arm around Will’s shoulder protectively. “If we open it for Billy, we open it for the monsters.”

“Not necessarily,” said Steve and this was the part to lay out his plan. “If we guard it from this side, then it should be…”

“Insane” mouthed Jonathan, gripping on Will from his other side. Steve understood them, really, but there were things that had to be done.

“I go and save him” said Eleven confidently.

“Absolutely not” came the answer from Hopper and Steve in unison.

Hop’s frown was so deep, Steve was sure someone could fall into it.

“Billy is still in there! We cannot just let him die!” Max was screaming and she was so, so angry that it gave goosebumps to Steve, he still didn’t know when did she became so protective over her stepbrother, but now wasn’t the right time to dive into that. At least someone was on his side.

“We won’t. I’ll go and get him back.” Steve said with all the patience that he did not actually have.

“We cannot just open another gate, I’m sorry Max, but it’s too dangerous, remember what happened when it was open the last time? It could be even worse!” Hopper reasoned and he was right, sure, but Steve wasn’t gonna let someone die in there, no matter what. He was looking for Billy and he finally found him. He won’t fucking let go _now_.

Besides, there was no one else, who knew about the Upside Down, or Billy being there for that matter. They were his only chance of survival and just because they did not like him (or straight-up hate him), they shouldn’t let him die. Not knowing and sitting on their hands was one thing. But knowing and doing so, was an other. Liked it or not, it was their responsibility now.

He looked at Max’s face, wet from tears and red from anger, her mouth was hanging open, like she just couldn’t process the words that the chief just said. She turned her head right and left to find someone who could back her up.

“We don’t have to open it again. There was only a small crack and it was big enough for Billy to fit through, right?” Everyone looked at him with the face of a first grade kid, who’s trying to add up seventeen and eighty-two. “We just have to cut a new hole. I go in, I bring him back and we can forget that this shit had ever happened. Again.”

 

He wasn’t asking for permission and Hopper understood that, but made it very obvious that he didn’t like the idea and came up with the condition, that they have to go in together.

Well he wasn’t alone with that, Steve thought, because he knew he had to look brave and calm for the others, but on the inside he was trembling and playing his latest nightmares over and over in his head, accompanied by actual memories from that horrible place.

 

 

They worked out a detailed plan and started the preparation. Time was at the essence and they all knew that. They reassembled in about an hour and everyone was shaking, nervous and scared. But ready to fight if it’d came down to that.

Steve grabbed his bat from his trunk. That bat had got him through enough bullshit already, he hoped he can count on it for one more round. He anxiously chewed on his thumb and glanced around in the darkness. He was standing outside, waiting for Eleven to be ready.

She had her job cut out, and Steve knew that. Opening a portal, plus maintaining a radio channel inside the Upside Down, that was also connected with the outside? He felt shaky just thinking about it. Not as much as thinking about going in there, though.

As he stood there, with the scarf in his neck and goggles strapped on his head, it was horribly nostalgic, until the point where it was just horrible. Mostly cryptic, as last time he done this only the adrenaline carried him through and after everything was over, it turned out that he had a small skull fracture and a mild concussion. He felt dizzy for three days.

Steve thought about how he started to work at the station to stay in action, because he couldn’t handle waiting around, he didn’t want to twiddle his thumbs when danger came.

And now danger was here.

“I still don’t like this plan,” said Hopper from his side, blowing smoke and looking concerned.

“If there would be a better option, believe me, I’d take it.” He risked a smile, but it was way too shallow for Hopper to buy it. “Whatever El says we can’t be sure there aren’t other holes. I rather surprise them, than they surprise us”

“She can take care of herself.” He offered his cigarette to Steve and he took it gratefully.

“Yeah, but would you rather take any of them down there? If anything goes sideways they need to run. But they won’t. They’re just gonna jump in the middle of the shitstorm and sorry but Billy just doesn’t worth it. That’s why I want you to be close, so you can come back and take control.” He exhaled slowly, sending smoke mixed with hot breath into the night. “We go in there, we bring him back, El closes the hole, everyone’s safe and sound.”

Until the next time, he added in his head. Because there was just _always_ a next time.

The backdoor opened and Nancy’s silhouette appeared in the light coming from inside.

“She’s ready” she said and Hopper took one more anxious look at him. “I don’t like this one bit.”

“Believe me chief, me neither.”

When he was about to pass Nancy in the doorway, she grabbed his arm and gently pulled him back outside, closing the door behind her. Everything was dark again.

“Steve, can we talk?”

“Sure, Nance.”

“You know… you don’t have to do this” she just raised her hand when he opened his mouth to protest. “I mean, I know you always do this, saving everyone, playing the hero.”

“I’m not playi-“

“ _But_. No one would blame you, if you just didn’t go.”

He shook his head.

“Max would.”

“We can find an other way, something less dangerous.”

“Nance” he laughed humourlessly, “there is no less dangerous way, not with the monsters, not with the Upside Down.” Not with Billy, he thought.

“I know” she huffed out in frustration “I know, I just… I can’t watch you do this, you’ve been through enough, we’d all been and Billy… I don’t like to say this, but I don’t think he’s worth it. He’s such a scum and we all know that, and I’m sure that with time we’d fi-“

“That’s what we don’t have, time. He’s in there, I don’t even know how did he survive this long. We can’t leave him, we can’t wait and I won’t let anyone else to go in there. So just have some trust, okay?”

She didn’t say anything, just tilted her head and pursed her lips tightly together. She was obviously worried.

“It’s gonna be okay, Nancy, I promise.”

“Okay” she nodded. “Okay, fine. But if anything happens-“

“It won’t. We have a plan, we know what we’re doing.”

“Yeah” she said breathily.

They stood there quietly for a minute and it could be awkward, but it really just wasn’t. Steve might have lost a girlfriend with Nancy, and even though he was head over heels for her back then (and maybe he still was a little bit), he gained something more stable with her friendship. And it helped him be grounded, which admittedly he needed it now more than ever.

“Oh Steve,” she suddenly wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him tight “be careful.”

They stayed like that for a few brief seconds, until Steve slowly wrapped himself out of her arms and opened the door.

 

On the inside everyone was sharp focused. El was sitting on the floor in the living room, close to the window and all the kids were around him, Mike holding her hand reassuringly. Jonathan and Hop stood in the doorway with Joyce, who was chewing on her bottom lip anxiously, the cigarette in her hand shaking.

As he stepped inside, everyone was looking at him. Like _he_ was the one who’s gonna open an interdimensional hole in the middle of Hopper’s cabin.

“El, are you ready?” He asked her, while putting on his goggles.

“Ready.”

She put up her blindfold and Steve pulled his scarf over his face.

Everyone went silent, Mike squeezed her hand one more time, before he let go.

Steve really hoped it would work, because in theory it should, she done it before, but. That was an accident and she opened the _gate_ and now it was only a small hole. If she opened the gate by mistake again… that would be Steve’s fault, since it was his plan after all.

Shit, he really hoped it’d work.

For a couple of minutes nothing happened, no one moved and there was only the noise of the static.

Then suddenly the walls started to tremble with a deep rumbling sound and there it was.

It was open.

The hole itself wasn’t big, slightly smaller than the one Billy fell into and that was kind of reassuring. But it had a pretty similar appearance; dark, slimy and with a thick, almost transparent membrane over it, that let them see through it, just enough to know that it worked.

Eleven took off her blindfold and held up her thumb. She looked tired and breathed heavily. She didn’t really have to use her powers for a long time now and if Steve survived this, he was sure to buy her a month worth of eggos, never mind what Hopper would say about too much sweets.

He gripped his bat a bit tighter and checked his walkie, before putting it in the side-pocket of his backpack. As he looked around everyone was at the ready, Nancy was holding a riffle and Steve wouldn’t want to be a demodog on the other end of that. Their faces were concerned and weary and he knew that he didn’t like that. So he had to fix it. Which meant voluntary walking into the lion’s den to save a sheep, but instead of lions there were demodogs and instead of a sheep, there was Billy Hargrove. This analogy wasn’t working out so well for Steve, so he decided to just stop thinking about it and go.

He looked at Hopper’s face, or what he could see apart from the scarf and goggles. He nodded.

He climbed through the hole, it was sticky and covered with black goo on the inside. He could still see the others, inside the warmth of the cabin, on the _other side_.

It was cold in there and so humid. The smell that lingered in his nose after every nightmare hit him in the face with full force. Even through the scarf he could smell mould and smoke, the kind that made your nose go dry and your lungs sting, the one that floated over chimneys in the first days of winter.

The spores were floating in the air, like light flower petals; poisonous petals at the best.

It was different, than what he expected, then again he’d only been in the tunnels before, this was the actual Upside Down. Like an extended version. It was horrible. Hollow, dark and everything was covered in black slime and then there was this noise. Steve couldn’t decide which direction it was coming from, it was like it was coming from the air itself. And in some paradox way it just made the whole place seem even more silent.

He hated everything about this place, how it looked, smelled and sounded and the way it looked just like the real deal but so, so _empty_.

“Steve” The sound of his walkie was like a scream in the night, while in reality it was just a crackle and a whisper. “Can you hear me?”

Mike’s voice was full of tension and Steve felt just the same.

“Yeah, yeah, I hear you,” he whispered back and looked around nervously. They suspected that blood drown out the demodogs, but sound may as well be just as effective, they didn’t know and he didn’t wanna find out by experience.

“We’re going to call in every fifteen minutes. If we don’t have an answer-“

“Then you stay put on your asses and call again in fifteen minutes. You are not coming in, you are going to sit tight and wait one hour, then close the hole. Do you understand me?” Steve grumbled.

“Yeah, but what if-“

“Do you understand me?”

“Yes. Fine, understood.”

“Good. Call us in fifteen. Over and out.”

“But you didn’t even say _over_ bef-“

Steve pressed the button on the side and shoved the walkie back in its place.

“Do you really think, they’d come in?” Hopper looked at him with concern.

“Why? Don’t you?”

He just furrowed his brows, but didn’t answer. They both stared into the darkness in front of them.

 

The plan itself was fairly simple, but none of them was entirely convinced that it’ll work. Steve’s main worry was to keep the kids safe and away from trouble, so decided that someone has to stand guard near the portal, while the other gets Billy. Since Hopper thought it was the safest position, he wanted Steve to wait for him, until he brings back Billy, but he felt that because of the case it was his responsibility.

They argued over the matter so long, that Jonathan suggested they play rock, paper, scissors for it. In that moment they could agree on one thing with the chief; that it would be a stupid and embarrassing experience.

And it truly was. But Steve won.

Only a few feet away from the hole they stopped, checked their walkie-talkies one more time, then Steve started to walk.

He had to hurry. He didn’t wanna spend a minute longer in there than necessary. And really he felt like he already overstayed his welcome.

He walked through the woods, looking back at the cabin time to time, but he was way too far now to see the shimmering hole in the wall. He was on the main road now. Billy’s car was in the other side of Hawkins, but the road took him straight there.

 

 

He hoped that Billy would be still around and haven’t wandered away to somewhere where Steve couldn’t find him. Or dropped dead, for that matter. The longer the portal was open, the more possible it was that demodogs found out it’s there.

And he told everyone to stay put, but if it comes down to that, just how many demodogs can they hold back alone? And what if it takes too long and they get worried and come after him? Well, that’s the reason why he left Hopper there. God, he hoped he can control them.

He walked in silence, looking around cautiously. After twenty minutes, he reached the edge of the town. It was horrifying to see Hawkins covered in black sludge and vines everywhere. It all looked kind of normal, even the Christmas decorations were up. Although black and slimy.

He walked past the shops in the town centre, then the supermarket and the schools and there was nothing. No demogorgon, no demodogs, nothing. It was dead silent, the only thing he could hear was his own breathing and that _damn noise_. But it wasn’t long to reach 124.

First he had to find Billy, then they had to go back to the cabin, to the hole. And it was terrifying enough to walk for like an hour in open territory, let alone take the trip twice. All of his muscles were aching from tension, he was at the ready, whatever came.

In the dark he started to have upsetting thoughts that he just couldn’t stop from penetrating his mind. What if he haven’t seen anything, because they were already at the hole? Or there’s another hole? What if the others can’t hold them back? What if someone gets hurt?

It’d be his fault. He insisted on this, he told them to stay put. Well, strictly speaking it was Billy’s fault getting in here, which Steve still didn’t understand how could it happen at the first place.

After reporting on the walkie for the fourth time, he finally reached Billy’s car without any problem. He looked inside, under the car, but there was nothing. So he started to walk over to the place he saw him last. He went into the woods deeper and with every step this eerie feeling became stronger. The dead leafs crunched under his feet and his grip on the bat was so tight, all of his knuckles turned white.

What if Billy was dead already? Although he didn’t see anything yet, but maybe they were feasting on him right now, like a big family at the dining table. His stomach dropped for the thought. He really hoped he didn’t come here and risked everyone’s life for nothing.

 

He was so deep in the woods, he couldn’t see anything else but trees and sludge and darkness, wherever he looked. He supressed the urge to call out for Billy, but didn’t really know how else would he find him.

 

Then suddenly there was a sound somewhere behind his back. He turned around, holding his bat in front of his chest and found himself just about ten feet away from something that he never saw before.

It was bigger than any demodog and its spine bones were pointy, like spikes, but its face was the same flower shaped mouth of death that he got so accustomed to. It was probably something that was between a demogorgon and a demodog and it was looking straight at him. Well as much as something can look without eyes.

“Shit” Steve hissed and he knew that he had to make a decision right now. Flight or fight.

 

He ran.

 

He heard the thing growling behind him and no matter how hard he pushed himself, it was faster. He almost fell face forward twice before he spotted something not too far.

It was a service cabin hidden in the woods. It was tiny and he wondered if it was as abandoned in real life, as it looked here. Although that wasn’t exactly the most important detail at the moment.

He ran up to it and grabbed the doorknob, but it wouldn’t turn.

“Come. On.” He pulled on it harder, but nothing happened. The thing was nearing in fast. He slammed his palm on the flat of the door and shouted once more. “COME ON!”

And then the door suddenly swung open.

He looked up, his hand still grabbing the space left after the doorknob.

Billy stood there with an obvious shock in his eyes, his nose and mouth covered with some kind of fabric and his body with black sludge all over. There was a beat of silence between them.

“Harrington?”

“No time to talk. Let me in” he said and pushed him inside, then following him, he locked the door.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“Saving your sorry ass is what I’m doing.” He snapped and rushed over to the window.

“Yeah right,” he snorted. “How did you even find me?”

“It’s not that I don’t wanna have a heart to heart with you,” he grumbled “but right now we have bigger problems.”

To give emphasis to his words a big rumble came from the door. Billy took a step back.

Steve peered through the dirty glass. The beast was trying to break the door in and he guessed it’s gonna succeed more likely sooner than later.

“Okay” he said, trying to work out a plan in his head for- what? escape? fight? “Okay” he repeated and decided that it’ll turn out however they can manage and undone his pancake holster.

Steve hated guns, ever since Nancy held one against him on a night when things took an irreversible turn. So it was the only obvious choice to give his to Billy. He threw it at his direction and he caught it instinctively.

“Can you use it?”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Can you. Use it?”

“Yeah, yeah, I can.” He held the gun with slightly shaking hands. “What’s the plan, pretty boy?”

“We go out there. And then we wound it or kill it or whatever and then we run.”

“Right. Run where? I don’t know how you got here, but if you haven’t noticed yet, we’re pretty much trapped.” His voice was like surrender, like saying ‘just so you know we’re about to die’, but Steve wasn’t planning on giving up just yet. He’d been through worse after all.

“We’ve got a way out, they’re waiting for us. Let’s go!” Steve walked over to one side of the half-broken door and raised his bat, ready for a well-timed pounce.

“They?”

“The kids.” He said it, like it was obvious. “Now, come on!”

“Max? Harrington, you’ve got her involved in this shit?”

“Jesus, I haven’t got her into anything, now will you just- _move_.”

So he did, he came around to the other side of the door with a strict expression, where the beast’s head was already close to actually break in.

“Now get ready,” Steve said. “Shoot it in the face if you can.”

“What-?”

“NOW!”

It broke through fully and Billy fired Steve’s gun three times, all right in the middle of its face. It faltered a bit and fell back outside, Steve opened the door and stepped over the threshold. The creature seemed to be dizzy, but most certainly not dead. So fixing that, Steve pounced its head with his bat a couple of times, until the hard crack of a skull turned into a sticky smooching sound of blood and insides. It was definitely dead now.

When he turned around, Billy was standing there with an unreadable expression on his face.

“You really are something, aren’t you, Harrington?”

“Keep the compliments for later, we’ve gotta go. They have a hive mind, if there is any more of these things around, they’re gonna be here soon.”

“Hive mind? What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Connected minds,” he rolled his eyes, like Billy should just know this already. “Look, man we are pretty much on the clock here, so if you don’t mind I’d rather get going.”

He looked puzzled for a second, probably because he still couldn’t quite figure out the hive mind thing. Whatever, Steve thought and started to stomp forward in the sludge stained snow. Based on the cracking sounds of his boots, Billy was at his heels.

Soon enough he neared in, walking beside Steve. He opened his mouth to say something a couple of times, but never actually made a sound.

They walked like that, until they could see the edge of this freaky mirror image of Hawkins. That’s when Mike’s voice suddenly broke into the silence.

“Steve, come in, over.”

He sounded pretty nervous.

“Yeah, I’m here.” He heard a relieved sigh on the other end. Sitting in the cabin and not knowing what’s going on in there must drive them nuts.

“Where are you now?”

“I’ve got Billy, we’re on our way back. Is everything fine over there?”

“Yeah, no demodogs or anything so far.” It wasn’t Mike this time, but Dustin talking over him.

“Good. Call me in fifteen. Over and out.”

“Okay. Over and out.”

Billy finally seemed to built up the courage - or whatever he was missing until now - to talk.

“So. What’s all of this?” He gestured around. “Are we in hell?”

Steve barked out a short laugh. “Yeah, something like that. Look, it’s a lot and we don’t have time now, but I’ll tell you everything when we’re out.”

“If we get out.”

“I’m really getting tired of people doing this.” He sighed frustrated.

“What?”

“ _When, if_! Damn, just have some trust!”

There was a beat of silence as Billy was reckoning him, then:

“Okay. Fine. _How_ do we get out of here?”

“Well that’s… that’s actually simple. We just have to walk.” _And probably fight monsters in between_ , he added in his head.

 “Walk? Where? The hole I came through is not there anymore. I checked it. Multiple times.”

He must have been desperate, Steve thought. Being in the Upside Down was a nightmare, even for as long as Steve’s been there, not to mention the _weeks_ Billy must have spent hiding in there. It was unimaginable for him.

“We opened a new one. But it’s kinda far away, so we have to be careful, if we don’t wanna become demodog food.” Billy’s face was so confused, all the usual confidence gone. He probably had millions of questions running through his mind and really, Steve didn’t blame him, he remembered how he felt, when he first saw the Byers’ living room, then the demogorgon itself. But they didn’t have time, they weren’t safe, until they were on the other side.

Steve took his walkie and started to talk into it.

“Chief, do you copy?”

“Yeah kid, I’m here.”

“Good, I’ve got Billy, we’re on our way to the meeting point.”

“I know, I’ve talked to Mike.”

Steve nodded, although it was stupid, since Hopper couldn’t see him.

“Right. Have you seen anything?”

“Nothing here. Have you?”

“Yeah, actually… there was one. It was bigger than the ones before, keep an eye out.”

“Got that.”

Steve put away the walkie and looked back at Billy. “Let’s go. The chief is waiting for us at the meeting point.”

“And where’s that?”

“At the woods, after Trestle road.”

“That’s like an hour walk from here.” He sounded shocked and he raised his eyebrows, like he was saying ‘we’re never gonna make it’.

“Yeah, well you can just stay here if you want,” he grumbled.

For that he didn’t get a response, but Billy stepped forward, front of him, so they continued to walk in silence.

Steve was just as sharp as on the way there and Billy held up the gun chest-close, cautious with every step. They walked up to the edge of Hawkins, then continued their way towards the town centre. Steve was glad that his scarf covered his mouth, because if Billy could see him chewing on his bottom lip, he’d probably lose that tiny bit of faith he had left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed reading this chapter, as much as I enjoyed writing it!  
> Also in case anyone was wondering, just how realistic is that Steve can become a cop at the age of 21 without any actual police schooling; back in the days, in small towns you could be an officer without any kind of education, if the Chief of Police put some nice words in for you. So, I just assumed, that Hopper would do that for Steve.


	6. Alice, are you there?

They were walking in silence, tense and kind of awkward. That wasn’t exactly how Steve imagined it. Well, not like he had big expectations, but back then Billy always had something to say, a snide comment or a threat, anything really. But he was completely mute and that just unnerved him even more so, if that was possible.

 

Suddenly Steve held out his arm and Billy’s chest bumped into it. He was obviously about to shout him down, but Steve put his index finger on his lips over his scarf.

“I think there’s something,” he mouthed while looking at his right, towards the pharmacy, but there was nothing. Just the usual vines and black goop all over the windows and the big sign over the entrance, slightly askew.

“I don’t see anything.” Billy whispered back, squinting in the general direction of the store.

“Right.” Steve said with stiff lips, still very quietly. “Right. Sorry, let’s go. This place is giving me the creeps.”

“Tell me about it” he grimaced. Steve noticed how his knuckles went white from holding the grip of the gun.

They walked on, crossing Sammy’s bakery, the convenience store (the only shop open after 7pm) and the cinema, where once Tommy H painted that ugly thing about Nancy and where Tammy Parsons worked. The memory of talking to her felt like it was lightyears ago. Time felt fuzzy in this place, Steve noticed. He wasn’t able to tell how time passed in here, the only standpoint he had was the kids. They were checking on him in every fifteen minutes, so that helped him tell that he came in about one and a half hours ago. More than enough of the good things, he thought.

Despite not seeing anything, Steve’s paranoia didn’t falter one bit, but got stronger by the point they reached the road where you have to turn down for the Byers. He was looking around and behind his back almost every minute and if that annoyed Billy at all, he didn’t show any sign of it. In fact he was well-focused and seemed just as nervous.

 

His eye caught a shadow moving between the trees, so he grabbed Billy’s arm and stopped him. He nodded his head towards the woods. Billy’s face looked drained of colour, like he just saw a ghost. They heard some noise from behind, so they turned around, just to see a demodog standing in the middle of the road, about twenty feet away from them. Billy looked to his right, where three other demodogs were stepping out from between the trees, alarmingly close.

“Okay. Now what?” Billy gripped the gun, like his life depended on it and in all fairness it just might.

Steve slowly reached behind and took the walkie from the side of his backpack, eyes never leaving the ‘dogs.

“Chief, can you hear me?” He took a step backwards, so did Billy, anxiously looking at the monsters.

“I’m here.”

“Good, listen. I’ve got four demodogs staring me in the face.” He tried to sound calm, but didn’t think he succeeded.

“Where are you?”

Billy was tugging at his sleeve.

“At Mirkwood.”

Now stronger.

“Okay. Can you run?”

He looked up and finally saw what Billy tried to show him. About five more dogs were coming down the road now, closer and closer.

“Shit” he hissed. “Ugh. We have to.”

“Okay. Run to me, don’t look back and stay in line.”

“Got it.” Steve said and gripped Billy’s arm a bit stronger, before letting go completely as if giving a sign to him. He seemed to understand, because they moved in unison and ran like never before. And the demodogs growled up and started after them.

They ran down the road, trying to lose them.

Steve remembered the night in the junkyard, where he tried to hold back a bunch of them. Back then he thought he could do it alone, that he could protect the kids at whatever cost. But when Dustin opened the trailer’s door, he realised he just couldn’t. He was not enough to take on these horrible things from a different dimension all by himself.

And now there was another bunch of demodogs chasing him and he had to protect Billy. So he needed his help and he could only hope that the two of them are going to be enough to hold the fort, until they get to Hopper.

 

There was a gunshot and as he turned his head, he saw Billy pointing the gun to their left. This was a relatively small and slow gun, but he saw the one he aimed for buckling over. He was damn good at this.

“Are you alright?” Hopper’s voice crackled through the radio “Don’t waste bullets, just hurry up,” he was technically shouting now.

“Believe me” Steve answered panting, “we’re not wasting them.”

“Where are you now?”

“We’re, ugh” Steve looked around to pinpoint their exact location, which proved to be a big mistake. As he turned his head, he accidentally tripped Billy over, who fell on top of him with his full bodyweight, pushing him into the snowy, slimy ground. He went face forward, arms stretched out and he felt the skin breaking on his chin.

He dropped the walkie and now it laid about five feet away, way too far to reach, especially with Billy on his back. He could still hear Hopper shouting through it. “Where are you? What’s going on? Steve, come in! Damn it! _Come in!_ ”

 

That was it, wasn’t it? This is how Steve Harrington will die. Trying to save someone he hates, from something he’s not strong enough to fight against? It figures.

But there was something, still pushing, still fighting, it just couldn’t let him lay there, waiting for death. And this thing was Billy Hargrove himself.

Billy climbed off of Steve and grabbed him by the collar of his jacket, got him on his feet and pulled him.

“Wait! The walkie!”

“Leave it! We don’t have time for that!” And he was right, of course he was, they were way too close to stop for anything. Even though it made Steve sick in the stomach, just to think about being cut away from everyone and stuck here forever.

Billy pulled him strong and they turned up their pace. Steve turned his head right and left to figure out actually where they were. This area of the woods were familiar, but he didn’t realised it, until he saw it; castle Byers.

“That way!” He pointed somewhere to the left and they never stopped.

“How far, Harrington?” Billy asked, slightly wheezing, but keeping pace with Steve.

“Almost there” he said and heard the stomping getting louder behind them, but didn’t want to turn around to check just how close they were.

He was right, they were almost there, but that didn’t mean they will make it. Behind them there was at least fifteen demodogs running now and even with Hopper they couldn’t possibly hold them back for long. They had to get to the hole as soon as possible and making sure none of _those things_ goes through with them. This was a big issue, but right now he had to concentrate to get to the chief first. They had no connection, so he only could hope, there won’t be any more ‘dogs waiting for them there.

From his peripheral vision he saw a shadow nearing in by his side, he swung the bat towards it and the nails dipped into the thick, sticky flesh. The monster fell behind and they kept running.

“There!” Billy shouted suddenly and Steve could see it too.

Hopper was standing between the trees, not too far away from the cabin, with his riffle pointing towards them.

“Tell me, he’s not gonna shoot us” Billy looked at him suspiciously.

“Just if you’re not fast enough.” Steve tried to joke, but it fell flat.

“Come on kids, let’s go!” The chief yelled over to them. Not like anything could stop me now, Steve thought bitterly.

They caught up with him and Steve slipped on the goop on the ground, as he stopped. He fell, laying on his stomach, arms stretched forward, still gripping his bat painfully hard.

“Took you long enough,” Hop grumbled.

“Not really the time to discuss” Steve said, while turning around on the ground and getting back up on his feet.

“What’s the plan?” asked Billy, who was holding up Steve’s gun, now looking a bit pathetic compared to Hopper’s riffle. He probably didn’t have much bullets left either.

“You go. We’ve got this,” said Steve and when he saw Billy was just staring at him with his mouth agape, he made an annoyed face. “Go, go, go!”

Billy looked back nervously, but did as he was told and got closer to the hole, although still standing on the wrong side of it.

“ _’We’ve got this’_?” asked Hopper with a raised eyebrow, obviously not being sure about that.

“Yeah, well, I had to say something. _We_ supposed to save _him_.”

He just nodded and turned back towards the approaching demodogs. “And how we’re gonna do that, exactly?”

“I didn’t really think about that part,” he chewed on his bottom lip. He might wanted to add something else, but he haven’t got the chance. The monsters neared in.

One of them jumped towards Steve, but he sent it flying with a nicely pointed swing of his bat. Hopper fired the riffle.

They were making small steps backwards, while fighting off the closest beasts, but it was clear that at this rate the two of them won’t last too long. The portal was just a few feet behind them, so was Billy. He was mumbling something, but Steve couldn’t really pay attention to what he was actually saying. Priorities and all that.

He was swinging his bat with such big moves that it actually started to tire him out, but it was barely enough. While he was hitting one in the face from the front, there was an other one jumping towards him from his right. There was no chance he could move fast enough to block both and he knew that.

But before he could panic (more than he already did) he heard his own gun banging and the monster dropped down in mid-motion with a pathetic sound.

“Bullshit!” said Billy now loud and clear and stomped back towards them.

“Billy? What the fuck? I told you to go!”

“Great call” he grimaced. “You’re welcome, by the way.” He fired once more and looked at Hopper. “How about we all just fucking _go_?”

Hopper looked annoyed, but also seemed to agree with him. The only thing Steve could think about was that they don’t have time for any of this.

“And how do you propose we do that? If we turn around, we’re dead.” Steve shouted over the growling and the sound of the riffle, continuously smashing demodogs in the head and chest as they neared in. How many more were there anyways?

“Then don’t,” he said, while grabbing Steve by his shoulder from behind and dragging him backwards, pulling the trigger twice shortly after each other, but there was only one bullet coming out. “Shit.”

He looked at the chief again and it seemed, like they had some kind of understanding, that Steve must’ve missed out on.

“Steve, go with him, I’ll cover you two.”

“Impossible!” Have both of them gone insane?

“Come on Harrington, listen to the big guy!” Billy continued to drag him to the portal, now without the gun.

“Let me go!” He broke out of his grip and looked at Hopper, who was technically running backwards with the riffle pointed at the hoard of the demodogs. “We’re here to save _you_.” He poked Billy in the chest with his index finger.

“Then how about we both get to stay alive?” So close to the exit, Billy seemed to regain his ability to speak, as well as his wit apparently.

“Well, I’m not going in without him,” he gestured at Hopper, who was almost there. So were the beasts.

“Fine, fine” said Billy impatiently. “Come on chief, come on.”

_There._

 

There were multiple things happening at the same time. Billy went in first, him pulling- and Hop pushing Steve in the middle, he distantly felt his grip on the bat loosening, until he dropped it on the ground, his back at Billy, his face is in Hopper’s chest. Then they were on the other side.

 

“Close it, close it, close it!” Steve shouted urgently as soon as Hopper pulled through all of his limbs.

He didn’t even look around, he only talked to the empty, fixing his gaze on the hole, watching the hoard running towards them. He faintly registered his palms smarting with the starting blisters and a distant pain around his chin.

The portal was closing in, fast and as he turned his head around he saw Eleven with her arms stretched out, brows furrowed deeply, bloody nose and a look in her eyes that Steve could go on without seeing one more time in his entire life.

He could see the ‘dogs trying to push through the membrane, unsuccessfully.

Finally it was over. It felt like an eternity, when probably it was only a few hours and for this thought suddenly he felt a pang of pity for Billy, who was in there for weeks. But that feeling turned into disgust as soon as he looked at him.

He was turned on his side as he emptied the containments of his stomach onto the ground, just hearing the sound of it made him also consider to do just the same.

 

After that, something unexpected happened; Billy dropped back on his elbows, removing the fabric from his face and started to _laugh_. Steve decided that hysterical would be a good word for what it sounded like.

“What is wrong with you?” He asked breathily, mouth hanging open with confusion.

“Don’t you get it? This is fucking _hilarious_! C'mon, join in, this is the joke of the year, no, this is the joke of the century! King Steve saves me from _actual monsters_!”

Steve looked at him still with his mouth agape, slightly shocked and by the silence around them he could guess that this is exactly what the other’s reaction was as well. He felt a slight twist in his chest for the mention of his late nickname.

“Are you off your fucking rocker?” He shoved Billy hard in the shoulder, which made him fully buckle back onto his back and although it did make him stop laughing, the smile plastered on his face didn’t make Steve feel any better. “We could have fucking died down there! And you think it’s what? _Funny_?”

As an answer, he just licked his upper lip, but said nothing.

Steve was about to get into a rant, but then Max appeared in the sea of legs and the look on her face resembled the one from the day she came into the station, but multiplied with like a hundred. Steve shivered; she was fucking terrifying.

“Hey, dickhead!”

“Max…” Steve wanted to tell her that it might not be the best time for a fight, but she didn’t even look at him; she was sharp focused on Billy.

“What. The fuck, Billy?” She kneeled over Billy’s stomach and yanked him upright by the collar of his dirty coat.

“What’s wrong _Maxine_?” He kept on smiling lazily, looking her straight in the eyes. “Were you worried?”

“Of course I was fucking worried, asshole!” She shouted in his face and shook him a little for emphasis. “Don’t _ever_ fucking go vanishing again like that!” Her face softened just the slightest and her eyes were quite glassy, but she did not cry.

“It’s not like I’ve done it on purpose-”

“Don’t! Just… don’t.” she said with a more normal volume this time and Billy reached up, grabbed her wrists and gently removed her hands from his coat.

“I’m sorry” he breathed and Steve was sure no one else heard it and it was meant for only Max anyway, he was just happened to be close enough to catch it. He couldn’t find it in himself to stand up, he felt so god damn tired. He already had some questions for Max, now he had to write a list.

 

Suddenly there was a hand in his view and Dustin was there to help him up. His eyes were glassy as well, but Steve guessed that he _was_ gonna cry. He kneeled down beside Steve, to pull him into a tight hug.

“Man, I thought you were a goner.”

“Thanks for the vote of trust, buddy.” He patted the boy’s back.

“How very touching,” Hopper grumbled around a freshly lit cigarette and he didn’t look pleased at all. “Now if you’ve finished, we’ve got some stuff to talk about” he looked at Billy over Max’s shoulder pointedly.

There was a beat of silence so sharp, that Steve could hear how Max’s clothes rustled, as she got off of Billy.

The guy’s face darkened slightly, then there was that insane smile again, that made Steve want to put him right back into the Upside Down. Just a little bit.

“Well, don’t get me wrong, it was _tremendous_ fun, but I’ve gotta go now.”

“Woah, you’re not going anywhere,” Steve grunted. “There are some ground rules, we have to discuss before that.” Steve was feeling more awake now, because really, just what the fuck? They _just_ saved him and he was being an asshole as soon as he got out of that hellhole.

“I don’t give a shit about your rules, I’m go-“

Steve pinned him down with one arm over his shoulders, into the mud and dirt, leaning over Billy, looking him straight in the eyes.

“Listen up, shithead,” he hissed in his face. “I just went in there, risked my life, _risked their lives_ for you. So _the least_ you can do is to do. What we ask you. To do.”

“Fuck you, Harrington” he spat but when Steve let him go, but he didn’t move. Good.

“Woah.” Will mouthed from their side and Steve shot him an angry glare, not particularly meant for him.

“Help me up” he said to Dustin, who did just that without saying anything. He looked down at Billy and pointed towards the cabin with his head. “Get inside.”

It seemed he might gonna protest, but stayed quiet and scrambled himself up from the ground after all.

 

It took almost an hour while they pretty much told everything to Billy, so he’d knew how serious this shit was. It was mostly Hopper and Joyce talking, the kids helping the story along, while Steve stood on the side, leaning to the wall. Legs crossed, arms crossed, just completely closed off from this whole thing. He did his part, didn’t he? He didn’t really want to indulge in this any more than necessary.

It turned out that Billy hit a demodog with his car and being an idiot, as he is, he followed it through a hole, just like Alice did with the rabbit. He supposed it was a fitting metaphor, although if Billy was Alice, what did it make Steve? There wasn’t anyone looking for her when she got lost in Wonderland, well in all fairness not many people were looking for Billy either.

Apparently he was quite shook by the fact, that he was missing for about three weeks. Looking over him at the light of the lamps, he was extremely pale, white like a sheet of paper, well that mixed with a weak shade of purple. His lips were chopped and there was still quite a lot of dried blood on his face. He held his fists under the table, but Steve could saw them trembling. All in all, he looked like crap. And based on the fact, that all that time he did not eat or drink, it was no surprise. But the fact, that he survived like that sounded pretty much impossible for Steve.

“When I was trapped in the Upside Down, I didn’t eat or drink either, but the time is literally standing still in there. You could go on like that forever, I guess.” Will explained.

It still sounded way too farfetched for Steve, but he could agree, that time felt fuzzy in there and it wasn’t like he questioned what they went through, it was just too much even for him.

 

Hopper called up Owens, who apparently had a guy in the hospital, working in the ER, who used to work for him in the lab. Just the guy they needed.

They agreed on some basics, not telling anyone about this for one. And that they’re going to fix up an alibi for him, for the case so that he can magically reappear again. The case Steve was working on, the case he solved and yet didn’t give him much satisfaction.

If he wanted to be honest with himself, he was fuming. He went all the way out, to convince everyone that they had to save him, he had many reasons; he felt responsible for him, because it was his case, Max seemed to be worried sick, but the most annoying out of all of them was that he felt sorry for him, not even pity, just _sorry_.  
Because he had a peek into his childhood and he thought ‘hey, maybe he’s not that big of a jerk after all’, maybe it’s not entirely his fault how he behaved or whatever. And besides his dad was a grade A asshole, a loathful piece of shit. Maybe the problem was that over the days of working on this case made him imagine a very different Billy Hargrove, than the one he went to school with. He kept picturing him as this victim of child abuse, someone who made Max worry about his wellbeing. Worst of all, a person who couldn’t be himself, pulling up walls and pretending to be someone else. Steve related to that person so strongly, that now finding himself facing the very same Billy Hargrove, who tormented him and the kids back then felt like a punch in the gut. Or a plate over his head. He was naïve.  
And he didn’t know what he expected really, that he’s gonna have a 180 degrees turn and just be nice? Be humble? Act like an _actual_ _human being_? Say thank you?

Yeah, maybe to say thank you. He was ready to put everything behind them, just for that two words, all the bullying, the punches and everything. But that never happened and now he was angry. Like boiling from deep down in his soul kind of angry.

Surprisingly though Billy didn’t seem to be so loud during the talk, he only made a few side comments, but didn’t even look at Steve’s direction, which didn’t really help with lightening his own mood.

Hopper took Billy to the hospital and Joyce gave him a ride home, because they insisted he wouldn’t drive. And that was bullshit, because no one protested against Hop driving, but he didn’t say anything.

When he got home, he just threw his clothes into the bin, took a long, steaming hot shower, put on some old, stretched-out sweatpants and a jumper and fell on top of his bedcover.

He tried to dwell in his anger and cling onto it, but it didn’t take more than a minute and he was already asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaand finally there is some action. I was waiting to get this chapter out so much. Because my pals, the party's just getting started now!


End file.
